


Tales of the Rio Grande

by TheByronicMan



Series: Texas Zombie Reporter [2]
Category: Newsflesh Trilogy - Mira Grant
Genre: Animal Zombies, F/M, POV First Person, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-11-27 14:16:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 49,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheByronicMan/pseuds/TheByronicMan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another Rob Phillips adventure, wherein he journeys through a National Park abandoned since the Rising. A change of plans gains him an unwelcome tag-along. Then things get worse.</p>
<p>Now with more sex in the beginning, for those who were unwilling to read all the way to Chapter 5 to get to it.  ;)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Unwelcome Guest

It began, as it always does, with a somewhat cheesy but traditional voice-over:

_This week on Texas Zombie Reporter we have a special treat for our viewers. Your intrepid reporter will be the first person not employed by the government to legally enter Big Bend National Park in nearly two decades. Big Bend is known for it's large packs of both human and animal infected, with animals ranging from small, cute, but remarkably dangerous javelina, up through coyotes, deer, burros, horses, and maybe even some black bears. In addition to the usual zombie-baiting so many of you love, I'll be packing extra cameras along so that the National Park Service can create a virtual tour of the park. In pursuit of that, I'll be hitting all the areas that were most popular with park visitors pre-Rising._

“Endit, sendit” I said, telling my system to cease recording and transmit the audio file to Bobbie.

While the true adventure begins here, the odyssey actually started several years ago, on the day I turned 25. At 12:01 AM I submitted the application to earn my A-10 blogging license. I'd grown up with my dad's stories about camping out in Big Bend, and I'd always wanted to do it myself. As Big Bend is a Level 3 Hazard Zone, I had to have an A-10 license to get in legally. Of course, to most people my age, dad's camping stories would have been a horror tale to surpass any told around pre-Rising campfires. Out in the wild, unprotected, the possibility of large animals just outside the light of the fire, no fences to keep them away, these are the things that give even the calmest kid today the screaming heebie-jeebies.

But those are the sort of things I live for. As soon as my license upgrade was approved, I started petitioning the government for permission to enter Big Bend. Sometimes I'd get lucky, and they would actually go to the trouble of denying my request. Most of the time, I didn't get a response at all. But over the last few years my reporting has brought me into contact with a few influential people (and several nutjobs) and some of those who liked my reports were willing to put in a word for me. Finally, my application was approved, and after a week of preparation, here I was rolling down Highway 90 a couple of hours out of Del Rio. The US Department of Transportation had intended to abandon this segment of 90 after the Rising, planning to restrict traffic to Interstate 10. However, a coalition of government agencies and corporations with interests in the area, notably the Border Patrol and the Union Pacific Railroad, lobbied heavily to keep it open. Though the trains are automated there is still a need for access by maintenance crews, and the rail bed is generally within a mile (and often right alongside) 90. Much of the security along the border is automated as well, considering how many people these days rarely even leave their homes, much less travel internationally. But there is sometimes still a need to put agents in the field.

I entered the ruins of Sanderson, which Dad had told me was never much of a town in the first place but had a great little Mexican restaurant that he could never remember the name of. Glancing at the clock on the dash, I noted that it was indeed just about lunchtime, but rather than stop here and break into my stock of supplies I decided to continue on to Marathon. With another hour of empty road ahead of me, my thoughts turned to the recent past.

I had just arrived home from my foray down south to the remains of the formerly popular Spring Break destination of South Padre Island. Home in my case is an apartment building that was nearing completion at the time of the Rising, an addition to an existing complex. Construction fences kept the infected out, and after the Guard moved through to clean out the area, it was the only building left standing. My parents were investors in the company that owned this complex and several others, and when the company was dissolved they got a share of the cash reserves along with the one building and the land it sat on. They turned some of the units on the ground floor into secure garages and used the rest of the floor for storage. After putting in an elevator and tearing down the exterior stairs, they interconnected the entire second floor into one huge apartment. Once I turned 18 and started getting a more or less steady income, I moved out of my old room and rented one of the units on the top floor. Once Bobbie and I got serious, she rented the apartment next to mine. After another year or so we were both living in my place and using hers for office and studio space. My folks pretended not to notice.

I drove through the first of the double gates, waited while it closed behind me, then waited a bit longer until the screamers were satisfied that no infected had followed me in. The inner gate opened and I drove through to my garage, the door opening as it picked up the transponder on my LAV and quickly closing behind me. After getting out of the driver's seat, I slid my hand into the testing unit by the door, and the electronic lock opened when the test came up green. Access to the hallway leading to the elevator requires going through a decon shower, and the exit door won't open until the shower has gone through a full cycle. So I stripped down, dropped my clothes in the hamper, grabbed a sealed package of sterilized clothes, and stepped into the shower to endure the bleach, hot water, UV lights, and a vigorous blast of warm air to dry me off. Getting dressed, I stepped out into the hall and entered the elevator. Another test unit waited inside, one that not only checked for live-state virus but also took my blood type and checked my fingerprints. The elevator won't work for anyone whose biometrics are not programmed into the system unless authorized by a resident. For that matter, once I moved into my own place my parents revoked my access to their floor without their invitation or my use of an emergency pass key.

Having passed the test once again, I rode up to our floor and stepped in to our apartment. I was greeted by the sight of our dining room table decked out with linens, candles, and wine glasses. The aroma of the last of our alligator steaks grilling wafted from the kitchen. As the door closed behind me, Bobbie stepped into view carrying a bottle of my favorite wine.

“Wow! What's the occasion?”

Bobbie grinned at me, “They said 'Yes'.”

I stood dumbfounded for a moment, “You're kidding. I'd just about given up hope.”

“That's one of the few things I wouldn't kid about, you're really going to Big Bend,” she replied. “Now sit down, dinner will be ready in a minute.”

I moved closer, taking the bottle from her hands and setting it on the table, then pulled her close and kissed her. She returned the kiss with enthusiasm, full of promise for later. Finally breaking the embrace, I sent her back to the kitchen with a swat on the butt. She giggled and wiggled as she went on her way.

The steaks were grilled perfectly, though I was so excited I'm not sure I wouldn't have enjoyed them just as much if they'd been raw. Much as I enjoy visiting the Traugott ranch, I hope that the FDA and CDC approve the sale of alligator meat soon, so that I can get it at the store instead of having to drive out into the Hill Country to get it from the source. Dinner conversation consisted of making plans for the trip, discussing possibilities that got increasingly silly after the 3rd bottle of wine.

In the midst of dessert, I dropped my fork and it clattered to the floor. Bobbie giggled again and ducked under the table to retrieve it for me. She must have gotten lost, because she found my zipper instead. She slowly pulled it down, then moved my underwear aside and took out my cock. It was already half hard, and her talented lips and tongue soon had it standing straight. She sucked me deeper into her mouth, one hand gently massaging my balls through my pants. When her lips reached the base, she pulled back, her teeth lightly scraping across my flesh. After about a minute of devoting her full attention to the head of my cock, she took my full length again, faster this time.

Her attempt to give me a vigorous blow job was hampered by the confined space. After bumping her head on the underside of the table a couple of times, she gave up. Instead, she pulled off my boots and socks, then started on my pants. While she did that, I hurriedly stripped off my shirt. Once I was naked, I scooted my chair back and she emerged from under the table to stand before me. I watched, mesmerized, as she unbuttoned her skirt and let it drop to the floor, revealing that she was wearing stockings and garters. She teasingly drew out the process of removing her blouse, slowly undoing each button in turn. I could already tell she hadn't worn a bra, and finally the last button was opened and I could see that she hadn't bothered with panties either.

She let the blouse slip from her shoulders and fall to the floor, then slowly turned around and leaned on the table, pushing her lovely ass back at me. I stood up, grasped her hips, and pulled her towards me, my cock slipping between her thighs. She leaned forward, resting her head on the table, wiggling in anticipation. I slid my cock back and forth across her clit, then pulled back enough to thrust into her cunt. She was already so wet that I slid in easily. I fucked her hard and fast, and she screamed in pleasure. I was so lost in the moment that I didn't realize that I was having to step forward a little with each thrust until the table bumped into the wall.

I pulled out of her. “I think we need to take this act to the bedroom.”

She took a moment to pull herself together, then stood up and turned towards me. I couldn't help but laugh, the remains of my pie now covered her left breast. She looked down and joined in my laughter.

“If you want the rest of your dessert you'll have to follow me.”

With that, she turned and walked away. As I followed her swaying butt to bed, I reflected on how lucky I was. She was smart, sensual, and uninhibited. She wasn't at all jealous of the swarm of groupies than any halfway popular Irwin attracts, and loved to join in on the rare occasions that I brought one home. She had other men she saw when I was in the field, but she was always waiting and ready for action when I returned. I was hopelessly in love, and couldn't imagine not spending the rest of my life with Bobbie.

When we got to the bedroom, she turned me around and shoved me down onto the bed. I scooted back and watched as she crawled towards me. She used a finger to scoop some of the pie filling from her breast and place it on the head of my cock, then slowly licked me clean. Then she moved up and straddled my thighs, gradually taking me into her cunt. She rode me with a gentle rocking motion of her hips, occasionally leaning forward just enough to bring her breasts within reach of my mouth. Soon, I had finished my dessert and was ready to return to the main course. My hands went to her breasts, holding her upright. I pinched down on her nipples as I thrust up into her. She quickened her pace and I matched it until we were both in a frenzy. She screamed out one orgasm, then a second one. When her third one hit her pussy clamped down on me so hard it took me over the edge. Only my shoulders and heels were touching the bed as I came deep inside her.

She collapsed on top of me and then rolled to the side. I took her in my arms and held her close as we drifted off to sleep.

The next week was spent in a flurry of preparation. I contacted the National Park Service to get maps that were more detailed than anything available on the web, and in exchange agreed to provide them with video of my trip at a steep discount. I restocked the LAV with food and other supplies for the trip. I also stocked up on the most critical spare parts, since I would be hundreds of miles from the nearest repair shop or parts store of any kind, much less one that can get parts for military surplus vehicles. I spent hours going over my gear, making sure every camera and weapon was in perfect working condition. I spent more hours going over my armor, replacing any suspect link in the chainmail and repairing a few tears in the leather.

I also made the time to make three trips to Master Vega's school to touch up my technique. Master Vega has been teaching various martial arts for over 40 years, and since the Rising has developed a variant of Hapkido specifically for dealing with the infected. It emphasizes a high degree of situational awareness, misdirection, pass-by throws, and low kicks. The main purpose is to get the zombie on the ground to give you a better chance to escape. Advanced students learn to incorporate weapons ranging from short clubs to firearms. It has been universally derided by the legacy media as 'Zombie-Fu', a name that Master Vega's students have adopted with pride. There are no ranks, students wear a simple white belt with a knot for every zombie encounter they've survived. I've got more knots than anyone but Master Vega himself, because I'm the only one of his students crazy enough to go out looking for zombies to play with.

Returning my full attention to the road, I estimated that I should soon be reaching the ruins of Marathon. Sure enough, within minutes I saw the Marathon Truck Stop come into view ahead, the only surviving outpost of civilization between Del Rio and Alpine. It covered nearly a quarter mile of highway frontage on the south side of 90, bounded by the railroad tracks to the south and Highway 385 to the west. I drove past the truck parking, with its individual fenced enclosures for each rig, and turned into the gate leading to passenger vehicle parking. No automated security here, an armed guard held out a testing unit for me to use and checked to see if I had any passengers while two more guards kept their handguns in a low-ready position. After the test came up green the guard addressed me.

“Have you exited your vehicle outside of a secure area?”

“No,” I replied.

“Enjoy your visit, sir,” he said, handing me a magnetic card. “This will allow you to bypass the showers.”

The inner gate opened and I drove into the lot, past a sign advising that if I remained on the premises more than two hours I would have to be tested again. The rules here are strict but they've never had an outbreak inside the secure perimeter. A couple of truckers have died in the night and gone into viral amplification inside their sleepers, but the enclosures around the trucks serve to keep the infected in as well as out.

I detoured over to the fuel pumps, this being the last place to get diesel I was going to see for the next several days. Just as the cowboys of old were reputed to take care of their horses before themselves, the modern traveler makes sure his means of transportation (or escape) is ready before doing anything else. Unlike the gate, the fuel island is automated, though the first time I stopped here the attendant had to intervene to assist the refueling system. Since then, they've added LAV-300 schematics to the database. Once I was fueled up and had transmitted my gas card number for payment, I found a place to park. Climbing out of the LAV and heading to the main building, I happened to note a Ford Survivor with government plates parked near the entrance, solid black rather than the usual green and white color scheme used by the Border Patrol.

I walked past a dozen doors leading to showers and inserted the card into a slot which promptly swallowed it, unlocking the main door. I stepped inside and headed for the restaurant, flashing my OOIDA card for access to the driver's lounge. Several years ago, I did some ride-alongs with truckers for a story about independent owner-operators, one of the few remaining careers where people regularly venture alone outside secure zones. After the story was posted, along with some video of me helping one trucker fight off a small pack of infected, I was given an honorary membership. As soon as I sat down at a table, a waitress I vaguely recognized was there with a menu.

“Hey there,” she said. “Haven't seen you out here in a while. What brings you out this way?”

“Let me put it this way, when I leave you'll be able to watch me drive away through that window,” I replied, pointing to a window looking south.

“Wow, I heard they were finally letting a reporter into Big Bend,” she gushed.

She belatedly offered me the menu, but I waved it off. “I'll have a double ostrich cheeseburger with fries, and a Dr. Pepper.”

She tapped the order into her pad. “It'll be right out.”

I admired the view as she walked away. One of the perks of the driver's lounge is personal service. Lesser travelers have to make do with entering their own order on a table screen and picking it up from a window. As I pulled out my pocket computer to get a little work done, I noticed a disturbance at the entrance. A woman dressed for desert hiking was arguing the hostess, apparently trying to get into the driver's lounge. I couldn't make out what they were saying but she seemed insistent, and after further argument she stalked away angrily.

I returned to writing a somewhat melancholy blog entry for today, taking a long swallow of the drink that had arrived without my noticing. My meal arrived a few minutes later, and the waitress saw that I was busy and left without any chitchat. I shifted to keying with my left hand and eating with my right. Yes, I am adept at typing one-handed, a skill just as useful in journalism as it is purported to be in certain recreational online interactions. Finishing my burger, I pushed the plate aside and completed the blog entry, posting it online.

When I sat back, my waitress returned and presented me with her order pad showing my bill. I swiped it with my card, adding a nice tip, and returned it. She printed out my receipt, smiled, said “Thank you. Hope to see you again soon.” and walked away with a little extra shimmy in her step. I glanced down at the receipt and saw that she had added her name and phone number. I sighed and tucked it into my business expenses folder, figuring Bobbie would get a chuckle out of it when she did our taxes. Any Irwin with a halfway decent viewership attracts groupies. For some reason I appreciate but don't quite understand, Bobbie chooses to consider the female attention I get to be a compliment to her. As I exited the driver's lounge, the angry young woman from earlier approached me and glanced around to see if anyone was within earshot.

“Mr. Phillips? Agent Antonia Guillen, DEA,” she said quietly, discreetly flashing a sure-enough DEA badge at me.

“What can I do for you, Agent Guillen?” I asked.

“I've been ordered to accompany you on this trip.”

“I'd rather you didn't, but I guess I can't stop you from following me. Though if that's your SUV out front, I wouldn't count on it being able to handle some of the back roads I plan to use.”

“You misunderstand me,” she said. “I'll be riding with you, posing as an assistant.”

“No, you won't,” I replied. “I can carry enough supplies for one person for a week. I plan to spend five days in Big Bend. I don't have room to carry much more than that, nor do I have room for more than one person to sleep. So unless you plan on sleeping unprotected on the ground, eating cactus, and scavenging for water, it's not going to happen.”

“I can arrest you for obstructing an investigation.”

“And the video feed of that arrest and this conversation will be offered _gratis_ to every major news site within five minutes. That should pretty much end any chance of you conducting undercover operations in the future. Not that you'll keep your job anyway after having your ass handed to you in court. I cannot be legally compelled to aid your investigation in any manner other than answering questions which do not compromise confidential sources.”

And I knew the video would be on most news blog sites within no more than half an hour, on TV later in the evening, the audio would be played on news radio stations, and that stills and a transcript would turn up in newspapers the next day. While those in the legacy media don't really like bloggers, they grudgingly accept us as being journalists of a sort, and any credible story of reporters being harassed by the government gets a lot of play.

“You're recording me?” she snarled.

“Not yet,” I explained. “The feed goes into a buffer and I've got an hour to decide whether to save it or let it drop into the bit bucket. Or my partner back in San Antonio can save it.”

“Hold on a minute,” she said, then tapped her ear cuff phone. “Told you he wouldn't go for it. Besides, any idiot with a web connection could find out he works alone in the field. Plan B.” Turning back to me, “Mr. Phillips, I'll see you outside in a few minutes.”

As she turned and walked away, I headed into the store. There are a couple dozen families that still live out here in fortified homes. Since the truck stop is the only local employer, anyone who isn't cut out for a career in retail or food service either commutes the 30 miles to Alpine or works from home. Most of them supplement their incomes by selling homemade food items, mostly cactus fruit jellies and honey. I did a story on them last spring, and joined them on a trip into the wilds to harvest prickly pear fruit. The older folks reminisced about the days when the biggest dangers of fruit picking were cactus spines and the occasional rattlesnake. They sent me home with several cases of product, which my family and I used up in a couple of months. Fortunately, the truck stop carries their wares. I bought a couple of hundred dollars worth, and rented a small storage locker to put it in until I was headed back home. Last trip through I missed out. Sometimes a trucker will buy out the entire stock to sell to specialty shops along their route.

Exiting the store, with one jar each of prickly pear jelly and mesquite honey for the trip, I saw Agent Guillen waiting by my LAV. Her Ford was no where in sight. She'd added a light Kevlar jacket, tan and bearing the National Park Service logo, to her ensemble.

“I thought I made it clear that you aren't riding with me,” I said.

“You did,” she replied. “My ride is going through the car wash, it'll be out in a minute.”

Speaking up so that passers-by could hear, she added, “Mr. Phillips, I know this wasn't part of the original plan, but Director Mather wants to ensure you follow all Park Service rules and regulations, so I'll be your escort.”

I mumbled something mildly obscene under my breath, but refrained from commenting out loud. As I glanced over at the car wash, the Ford Survivor emerged, now decked out in green and white and sporting the NPS logo on the driver's door. Apparently it had been equipped with programmable paint, something I'd been saving up to get for the LAV. Changing its colors while hidden in the car wash struck me as about on par with Clark Kent ducking into a phone booth.

I turned back to Agent, sorry, 'Ranger' Guillen. “If you're going to insist on following me, please stay at least a mile behind me on the road, and try to park out of view when we stop. The Park Service is paying for a clean video recording, so it would really help if you'd make it easy to edit you out.”

“To keep cover, I'll need to be with you when you're on foot to make a show of seeing to it you don't damage important historic or ecological treasures,” she said.

I sighed. “I'll give you access to the raw feed from my cameras, you'll be able to watch me like you were standing on my shoulder. I'll even make a point of complaining about it on my blog. Or even better, I'll get Bobbie to do it.”

“Okay, that should work.”

I stowed my purchases, then climbed in through the driver's hatch, securing it shut so I could use the A/C. Even in early April, it gets a bit hot in this part of the state. Starting up the engine, I headed out through the gate and turned left onto 90, quickly followed by another left onto the cracked, unmaintained asphalt of 385. Driving past the side of the truck stop and across the railroad tracks, I stopped at a heavy steel gate blocking the road. I sat there for a moment. I've traveled this stretch of 90 a number of times, but I'd never been able to turn south from it until now. Shaking off my revery, I took out my pocket computer and transmitted the access code that the Park Service had provided me. The gate opened, and I drove through.

After clearing the gate, it was another 39 miles to the park boundary. I activated all the outside cameras, the uplink sending the feed to my home system and a redundant copy to some space we lease at a server farm. A surveillance camera at the gate swiveled to follow me. That would be Bobbie using another access code the Park Service provided in order to get the customary exterior shot of me driving by.

Though the desert around me seemed as dry as ever, there had been some rain in the past week and the roadside was decked out in blooms. From the oranges and yellows of the prickly pear cactus, the deep, almost blood red of some of the barrel cactus, to the brighter red of the Indian Paintbrush, the desert gave a rare show of color. A few miles farther along, the Big Bend Lupine predominated, a larger cousin of the Bluebonnet. It's only found in this small corner of Texas and the equally inhospitable region just across the border in Mexico. The video of this drive will give a nice little boost to our cash flow between click-through traffic from wildflower blogs and sales to TV shows. Fortunately, my contract to provide video to the Park Service doesn't kick in until I cross the park boundary. Farther in the distance, the occasional ocotillo added some green foliage and red blossoms to the landscape. 99% of the time, ocotillo look a cluster of dead, dry, spiny sticks. Add a little rain, and it comes to life.

Checking the feed from the rear camera, I noted that Agent, I mean, 'Ranger' Guillen was complying with my request to stay a mile back. Not that she had much choice at first, my six tires and low center of gravity allowed more stability at speed over the crumbled asphalt than her four-wheeled SUV. After a while, I slowed down so she could keep pace more easily. At some point soon she's going to have to level with me, give me at least some idea of what she's up to.

Finally, I arrived at the boundary. The NPS sign by the road was in surprisingly good shape, weathered but readable. A mile or so farther along, I came to the ruins of the entry station. Fortunately, somebody had cleared the rubble off of the road, saving me from having to cut a path through the brush for Agent-I-mean-Ranger Guillen's Ford. Desert zombies are subject to many of the same challenges as living people. Dehydration is a problem for them, though they will remain animate in a dehydrated condition that will kill a living person. A pack of a dozen or so is generally smart enough to seek shade in the heat of the day, and had the entry station been standing I could expect to find some infected sheltering inside. But what little was left could barely shade a jackrabbit, much less anything big enough to amplify. The latest satellite images show that the Panther Junction Visitor Center and the NPS housing behind it is still largely intact, so there is some hope for later in the afternoon. First, however, I have some stops to make.

After about another twelve miles or so, my GPS began flashing to get my attention. I tapped the screen to acknowledge, and slowed down to look for the turnoff. I probably would have missed it without the GPS highlighting it, as it was never more than an infrequently-maintained gravel road and hadn't been graded in over 25 years. Whatever sign had indicated it was long gone, and the only visible clue was that the brush in the former roadbed was even more sparse and stunted than that in the surrounding area. I set my GPS to project a Heads Up Display on the monitor for the forward looking camera, highlighting the course of the alleged road. As I turned off of the crumbling pavement, 'Ranger' Guillen caught up to me. My dashboard comm system lit up with a secure link request, accompanied by what was presumably Guillen's public key. I had my system use her key to send a session key, and toggled the radio for audio output. Normally every system is set for silent alerts and incoming calls go through voice to text software for display on a monitor. I frequently dictate commentary while driving and don't need extraneous noises interrupting me.

After a moment, Guillen's encryption-distorted but recognizable voice came from the speakers.

“Where are you going?”

“For someone who was planning to masquerade as my assistant,” I replied, “You're not very well informed about my published itinerary.”

“I knew that wouldn't fly,” she said, “So I didn't waste much time planning for it. The question remains.”

“Apparently you didn't do much planning for your clearly-misnamed 'Plan' B either,” I pointed out. “My contract with the Park Service requires me to try to get out to Dagger Flat and record some video."

“They're willing to let you go charging off across the desert?” she asked incredulously.

“There used to be a road here, and I'm expected to follow it as best as possible. You might as well wait here, I'll be back within a few hours. I'm not sure it's passable for me, I doubt very much that you'll be able to make it.”

With that, I ended the conversation and continued down the barely visible remains of the Dagger Flat Auto Trail. Stubbornly, Guillen followed me. Unfortunately, my wider wheelbase meant she couldn't stay in the crushed paths left by my tires, and the lighter weight of her Ford meant she bounced over brush that my LAV had no trouble smashing flat. Luckily for her the Ford Survivor has steel plates protecting the undercarriage or she'd be in danger of getting a punctured gas tank or getting some of these tough desert plants wrapped around her drive shaft.

It was slow going. Even when this road was sort of maintained, the 15 mile round trip generally took close to two hours. After about 15 minutes, I passed the turnoff for Old Ore Road, which was only passable to four-wheel drive vehicles even when the park was in operation. Shortly after that was the first major obstacle, a substantial dry wash that drained a fairly large area. As I'd expected, decades of erosion had eliminated any trace of the road, leaving some pretty steep slopes to navigate. I got on the radio and sent a call in the clear to my shadow.

“Ranger Guillen,” I said, taking care to keep any trace of emphasis on her assumed title out of my voice, “You're going to have to wait here. There's no way your truck will make it across this and I don't see any better route around it.”

“Fine,” she replied, “I could use a break anyway.”

With that, I popped the hatch and stood up to get a better view. I spent a few minutes picking out the best approach, then hunkered down and put her in low gear. I had to chuckle, pondering the oddity of driving an amphibious vehicle through the desert, while thinking this would be a lot easier if the wash was full of water. I carefully made my way down the side, taking it at an angle to avoid burying the nose in the opposite slope and getting myself well and truly stuck. I had to drive along the bottom for a few hundred feet before I got to a good spot to climb up the other side. But I made it, and after a few minutes I was back on the remains of the road. The drive was relatively easy after that, the road tending to follow the bottom of the washes, entering and exiting them at fairly wide, shallow spots rather than crossing them directly. Erosion left the road rather bumpy but not all that hazardous. Not a good place to be caught in a flash flood, though.

Another half hour of driving brought me to Dagger Flat, named for the Giant Dagger Yucca. Other than a solitary specimen found here and there, this small piece of landscape is the only place in the US where this particular species is found in the wild, and it's no more common across the border in Mexico. Here, however, there is a veritable forest of them, the tallest desert plants for hundreds of miles around. Named for their size and the long, stiff, pointed leaves at their crown, they typically rise about 10-20' high, and I saw a number of them that had to top 25'. And that's not counting the white-flowered stalks that rise from the top. I'd come at good time, most of them were in bloom. Too bad I had to give the video to the Park Service, but I retained the right to use excerpts for myself and I'd get at least some traffic.

Parking at the edge of the road, I hit the button to raise the camera mast, the 3rd most expensive (and most recent) modification I've made to the LAV. It's worth a lot more than I paid for it, but the guy who does my custom electronics sells them to me at cost because he says I present him with “interesting challenges.” In exchange, I give him free advertising on my site. Plus, my webcast often acts as a showcase for his work, allowing him to sell the stuff he designed for me to others at a nice markup. The cameras at the masthead function in much the same way as my portable field cameras, with three wide-angle cameras providing a full 360 degree view and one rotating camera that stays locked on me.

I swiveled my chair and opened the door into the rear compartment, the door being my vehicle's 2nd most expensive mod. As it came out of the factory, the driver compartment of the LAV-300 is isolated from the rest of the vehicle, handy for containing battle damage, not so handy for surviving in zombie-infested territory. Stripping out of my street clothes, I took the opportunity to use the most expensive addition, the flash-sterilization toilet necessitated by my nephrotic K-A. I have a reservoir condition consisting of a colony of live-state Kellis-Amberlee in one of my kidneys, and there is a slight chance of live virus in my urine.

And then I started gearing up to go outside. First, the alligator-hide pants and jacket, obtained from the same source as the steaks from that memorable homecoming dinner. I brought my summer armor, dyed a dusty white with numerous chainmail-protected vents to keep me from cooking inside it. Hopefully the fashionistas will forgive me for wearing white before Memorial Day. I eschewed my usual tactical vest for a daypack full of field cameras, water, snacks, and spare ammo. With the addition of my helmet, thin Kevlar-weave gloves, and thick leather steel-toed boots I was armored enough to step outside. Now I just needed weapons, so I buckled on my gun belt with its pair of holstered Springfield Armory .45s with 14-round magazines, hung my bangstick in its place, and slung my trident over my back next to the daypack. I catch a lot of flack from some people because I wear too much armor and carry too many weapons to be a 'proper' Irwin. But while I may never win the Golden Steve-O, I get some respect from a lot of my fellow Irwins, because I regularly go out with no backup. Even when I do have someone else along, it's generally people I've only just met and never worked with before.

Activating the cameras attached to my helmet, I blew into the microphone and said, “It's showtime.”

“I'm here,” Bobbie whispered in my ear, “Have fun.”

“I plan to,” I said, opening the rear door and stepping outside.

Bobbie doesn't talk to me when I'm in the field unless she sees something I really need to know about, but she's always watching. Her warnings have saved my life more than once, and she never distracts me with idle chatter.

And so I took a stroll through the Giant Daggers for about half an hour. The extra cameras on my helmet, modified for this particular trip, recorded a nearly spherical view around me except for a 10' circle of ground centered on my feet. In a few months or so, people would be able to experience the sights from the comfort of their homes, which is as close to the great outdoors as most folks get these days. Sadly, no infected people or animals interrupted my walk, though I did startle a few birds. After completing my circuit, I returned to the LAV, sealing myself up inside and stripping off just enough gear that I wouldn't be too uncomfortable in the driver's seat. No, I don't bother with testing myself for viral contamination before entering. The capability is there, I just leave it turned off except on the rare occasions when I have a passenger. After retracting the camera mast, I drove back the way I came.

While the driving was still relatively easy, I called Bobbie. “Tell me the video came through okay.”

“It's fantastic,” she replied. “I sent about 30 seconds of the raw feed to the NPS, and I've already heard back from them. They're just thrilled.”

“Good,” I said. “I hope the rest of the trip goes this smoothly.”

“No you don't,” she said. “I know you're itching for some action.”

“True,” I conceded. “Okay, I need to pay more attention to my driving, I'll talk to you later. Miss you.”

“Miss me all you want, just don't miss any zombies.”

The rest of the drive was routine. I arrived back where I had left Agent-I-mean-Ranger Guillen, the return descent and climb going easier this time now that I had already done it once. I found her waiting impatiently for my return. Apparently whatever she was looking for was not at Dagger Flat and she was anxious to get moving again. Driving back to the main road, I took pity on her and shifted my path a bit to the side, flattening more of the brush to give her a smoother drive. When we finally got back to 385, the crumbling asphalt seemed almost luxuriously smooth in comparison. Turning south once again, Guillen dropped back behind me and we continued on towards Panther Junction.

 

* * *

 

_Today is both a happy occasion, and a sad one. Today I begin a five day odyssey through Big Bend National Park. My regulars are familiar with the years of trials and tribulations that brought me here, so I won't bore anyone by recapping them. Suffice it to say that I consider this the Crowning Moment of Awesome for my career. I only wish Dad were still alive to see this._

_You see, today is also the anniversary of his death. Unlike many these days, he died peacefully, in his sleep. Unlike many these days, he stayed dead. As his passing was anticipated, he died in a hospital, where his brains could be neatly scrambled with powerful subsonics after his heart beat for the final time. But he was still a victim of the Rising, one of the ones we don't talk about much. My father died of liver failure, a side effect of his blood pressure medication. Before the Rising, organ transplants were becoming routine, saving many thousands of lives. Today, giving one person an organ harvested from another, living or dead, would doom that person to immediate viral amplification._

_But he is with me today, and not just in spirit. In accordance with his dying wish, his cremated remains ride with me on this journey, one last trip to Big Bend._

  * **From _Anthropological Curiosity,_**

**the blog of Rob Phillips, April 3, 2040**




 

_Well, the National Park Circus has pulled a fast one on us, saddling Rob with a nanny trailing him everywhere. That's going to mean hours of additional editing time to cut her out of the video so that it meets the standards they insisted on. And you can bet they'll get a bill for the extra work. _

  * **From _Yes Sir! F*** You Sir!,_**

**the blog of Bobbie Cardille, April 3, 2040**





	2. Zombies, Dinner, and Explanations

Next on the agenda, another five miles down the road, was the old Fossil Bone Exhibit. Dad always said there wasn't much to it, just a handful of fossils imbedded in the rock, sheltered by a small building. But it was on the Park Service wish list, so I was going to make the stop. The GPS flashed again as I approached the turnoff. This road wasn't in any better shape, but it was a lot shorter, and the parking area at the end was broad and not as overgrown. After going through the ritual of gearing up again, I hiked the short trail to the exhibit. It was just as disappointing as I'd been led to expect, a few fossilized bones under a small structure. And they weren't even the dinosaur bones that Big Bend was relatively famous for but rather some undistinguished Eocene mammals, or so my research said. The window fronting the exhibit was long gone, but whatever had been denning there was absent. The metal sign explaining the exhibit was faded to illegibility. The best part was that the exhibit was situated on a hill, and the desert vista beyond was breathtaking. It's telling that among all the pre-Rising blogs I'd found that mentioned this spot, most had photos of the desert view and none had pics of the fossils.

Back on the road, and on to the next stop. No point in even gearing up for this one aside from the helmet, as it was just a short walk from the road. Nina Hannold's grave site, the only one of the hundreds of graves in Big Bend that was maintained by the Park Service while the park was in operation. For that matter, the only one that the Park Service allowed to be maintained, although some of the others were surreptitiously cared for by friends, family members, and descendants of the deceased. Nina Hannold was also one of the few Anglos that had a recognizable burial site in the park, but that was no doubt just a coincidence. I won't speculate as to why it was the only grave on the wish list given to me for this trip. The grave was still in good shape, could stand a little clean up but otherwise intact. The original marker was stone, rather than the usual wooden crosses found in the area, and a commercial grave marker was added later.

After standing there silently for a few minutes, I returned to the LAV and continued south. The sun was headed towards the horizon, and I had one more place to visit before shutting down for the night. Another 5 miles or so down the road, the visitor center at Panther Junction came into view. I pulled into the visitor parking lot and parked, quickly raising the camera mast, gearing up, adding a grenade launcher to my assorted ironmongery, checking in with Bobbie, and stepping outside. I could already hear the moaning coming from the building. After taking out a couple of field cameras and tossing them to either side, I drew my right hand pistol and waited for the zombies to come out and play. I'll have to record most of the commentary later, but I have time to do a brief intro now.

“I know some of y'all have gotten a bit tired of all the scenery and have been hoping for a little more action. Looks like you're about to get your wish. I'm currently standing in front of the Panther Junction Visitor Center. It and the Park Service housing just out of sight behind it are home to the largest known pack of infected for hundreds of miles.”

The fake NPS vehicle pulled up alongside me, and Agent Guillen stepped out. “You sure you don't need any help?”

I sighed. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately. “If you want to help thin out the herd, that would be fine. But if they get within twenty feet, get back in your vehicle and stay there no matter what happens. In close combat, I need to know that anything moving is a target.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said. “I don't exactly want to get up close and personal with them.”

She was carrying a UMP25 Caseless SMG. Standard DEA issue, but plausible for a Park Ranger to be packing in zombie territory. I noted that she had it set on semi-auto and the shoulder stock was extended. The first few zombies stumbled out through the shattered remains of door, spreading out so that they could surround us once they shambled close enough.

“You start from the right,” I told Guillen, “I'll start from the left.”

Standard tactic for dealing with large packs, start at the edges and work your way towards the center. Unless you're on top of a building that they can't climb, in which case you start with the ones farthest away and leave the closest for last so you don't provide a staircase of bodies for them to clamber up. But at ground level the biggest danger is being surrounded, so you want them to stay in a clump. In a tight group, you can shift aim and fire faster, and there is some chance that a miss will still take out the next zombie in line.

They were about fifty feet away, at the edge of long range for me, but I had brought plenty of ammo so I opened fire. I aimed for the head of left-most zombie and, predictably, missed. But my second shot caught him just under the right eye and blew off the side of his skull, and he fell motionless to the ground. The second zombie caught a beautifully lucky round dead center in the forehead and toppled backward. I missed the third, my next shot hit her in the jaw but bypassed the skull and spine. At least I wouldn't have to worry about her biting me. The point became moot when I finished her off with the third shot. At that point I slipped into a combat trance, hardly conscious of my actions, my responses reduced to a set of If-Then statements. If it is down, then switch to next target, else, shoot it again.

I blinked, briefly aware again when the slide locked back on an empty magazine. My right thumb hit the magazine release while my left hand had already pulled a spare out of my belt pouch. I took a brief assessment, nine zombies down for fourteen rounds fired, not bad for the range. The new magazine slid home, I released the slide, and resumed firing. Guillen had been firing all along, the forty round mag for her SMG was convenient at times like this. By the time I emptied the second magazine and reloaded, Guillen had finished her first and quickly slammed another magazine home. The pack was about thirty feet away, and clumped together nicely. The larger a pack is, the smarter it is, and this one was smart enough to learn that straying too far to the side was a bad idea. Now to teach them why staying in a group was even worse.

I holstered my handgun and unslung the venerable M-79 grenade launcher. I pulled an M1968 Anti-Zombie Grenade from a loop on the sling, dialed in the range by eye, and loaded it, closing the action and releasing the safety. The AZG is a directional grenade, sort of like a miniature flying Claymore. It detonates at the range you set it for, and aimed right it will blow shrapnel through the skulls of a whole group of zombies, I think the record is twenty-three in one shot. In desperate situations you can even set it for a range of zero, in which case it detonates as soon as it leaves the barrel, but the concussion is very painful to the shooter and it knocks the launcher back hard enough to possibly break your shoulder.

“Now would be a good time to switch to full auto,” I told Agent-I-mean-Ranger Guillen as I brought it to my shoulder and fired, the M-79 making its characteristic “bloop!” sound.

I'd gauged the range pretty close and the front rank went down, along with much of the second rank. I was grateful for the hearing protection built into my helmet as Guillen's gun fired full-auto a couple of feet from my right ear. Those high-velocity .25 HydraShok rounds are louder than you might expect. As she mowed down the center of the pack, they started spreading out again. By the time her magazine ran dry there were twenty-six left still shuffling towards us, and they were getting close.

“Time for you to retire from the field of combat, Ranger,” I said, drawing both handguns this time. “I've got this.”

“You're out of your mind,” she replied, but she got back in her Ford anyway.

Some of my detractors says that the whole 'guns akimbo' routine is just stupid. They're right. If I try to fire both guns at once, I'm not going to hit a damned thing. But I don't fire both at once, I alternate. I can move my head faster than I can move my arms, and I've practiced enough that acquiring a sight picture when switching my attention from one gun to another is automatic. Besides, for me, 1911-pattern handguns, even the Springfield Armory hi-cap versions, are ideal for short range point-shooting. Inside of ten feet, I barely need to aim. Yes my accuracy does suffer some, but the extra speed in switching targets helps make up for it. Plus, two-gun mojo looks cool, and when you earn your living this way that's important.

I backed slowly away from the vehicles, across the empty parking lot. I'd picked my path earlier, noticing a stretch of pavement relatively intact and free from encroaching plant life. The pack was gaining on me, and I returned to working the edges, alternating between my left and right hand guns. I wasn't ready to be surrounded yet. Trying to walk backwards and shoot at the same time, my accuracy sucked, but by the time both magazines ran dry there were eleven more zombies on the ground. I holstered the gun in my left hand, reloaded the one in my right, and unslung my trident as they got close.

I wouldn't admit this on my blog, but one reason I like coming out to the west Texas desert is that desert zombies are just a little less dangerous. Their skin and underlying tissue is usually so dry and brittle they don't spray much if any blood when you hit them. They get clumsier as the smaller muscles and tendons dry out, and slower when they've lost enough moisture that the major muscle groups can barely function. There have been several cases of zombies that had dried out so much that they were completely inanimate, the only water left in their bodies was in their blood, brain, and major nerves. There were even a few reports during the drought of 2037 that zombies had been found completely desiccated, no moisture left in their bodies at all. Supposedly, the CDC took them away for experimentation to see if they would reanimate if the bodies were rehydrated. Hell, I even got bitten once and survived, all I can figure is that it was too dried out to produce saliva to carry the live-state virus. I felt like I was going into viral amplification, but that must have been a panic reaction. By the time I got back to the LAV and got a field kit, the feeling had passed and I tested clean.

I got three more head shots with my handgun before they closed in and I had to start moving. I threw a low kick at the first one that came at me, the steel toe of my boot destroying his knee, and spun out of the way as he fell. I continued the turn, using my trident to sweep the legs out from under another one, shattering her shin in the process. The trident is primarily a stabbing weapon, but it's forged from steel and makes a decent bludgeon as well. I fired the .45 at the next one that came at me, missing the first shot but putting the followup through his eye. I feinted a move to the side of one zombie, quickly shifted direction as he lunged towards the spot he thought I was headed for, and rammed the center blade of my trident through his neck, severing the spine. Zombies are suckers for misdirection, which is why it's one of the central techniques of 'Zombie-Fu.' There were eight zombies left standing, and they'd managed to flank me. I went into a blur of desperate motion, kicks, swipes, shots. My gun went empty and I dropped it, using my newly freed hand to give a little assist to a zombie that lunged past me, sending him sprawling on the pavement. I drew my bangstick and rammed it into the back of his head, sending nine 00 buckshot pellets through his brain.

I saw motion out of the corner of my eye, saw a zombie mouth headed for my shoulder, and twisted out of the way. He ran into another zombie attacking from the other side, and in the confusion they bit down on each other. I backed away, looking on dumbfounded as they continued to feed on each other. Then I realized they weren't after meat, but blood. As a rule, the infected don't attack each other, but I guess these two were so desperate for any kind of liquid that once they found some they couldn't stop themselves. I laughed a bit maniacally for a moment, then ended the bizarre tableau by drawing my left side gun and putting a round through each of their skulls.

I recovered and reloaded my other handgun, then went around finishing off the crippled zombies. I picked up any empty magazines that I could find that weren't visibly splattered with blood. Finally I recovered my field cameras, folded up the telescoping legs, and stowed them in my pack before returning to the LAV. I dropped the empty magazines, trident, and bangstick into the sterilizing bath and quickly swabbed myself down with a couple of bleached wet cloths.

Guillen leaned out the side window and commented, “I still say you're crazy, but that was amazing.”

“Always glad to get a new fan,” I said, “But right now we need to boogie on out of here.”

“Why's that?” she asked.

“Because that was only about a third of the pack, the rest are in the housing area just over the hill, and by now they should be headed this way.”

As if on cue, a new wave of moaning filled the air. I hurried into the driver's seat, retracted the camera mast, hit the ignition, and barreled out of the parking lot. Hitting the road, I turned right, driving past the Visitor Center. As I passed it, I could see the road leading back to the NPS housing. Well over a hundred infected were trudging down the road. Much as I hated to disappoint them, I was running out of daylight and could really use some rest.

Agent-I-mean-Ranger Guillen called me on the radio, but since I had set it back to silent I got text on the monitor instead of her voice.

_Sew we're headed two Doug out wells write?_

The voice to text software on my system isn't the best. It takes a while to adapt to new voices. It can transcribe Bobbie almost perfectly, but other people, not so much. I toggled the radio to audio output.

“Yes, we're going to Dugout Wells. Glad to see you did at least some research,” I said.

“Hey, first I heard about this trip was when they pulled me off duty at, um, Carlsbad Caverns and flew me to Alpine,” she explained. “Went straight from the plane to this truck and on the road to Marathon. Don't know how the Ranger that drove me to the truck stop was supposed to get home. I got a ten minute briefing on the way and spent the rest of the trip online learning what I could.”

Whoops, forgot we were talking in the clear. Good to know she's a quick thinker, Carlsbad Caverns is the only National Park in this area that's still operating. Bats are too small to go into viral amplification, so as long as you don't pick up the dead ones you're fine. Reading between the lines, I figured she must be out of the DEA office in El Paso.

As I drove, I grabbed a liter bottle of water, careful not to touch the spout with my hands, opened it with my teeth, and drained half of it in one long gulp. Bobbie hadn't contacted me yet, but I knew she was busy. I have to share all the scenery with the Park Service, but any zombie video is all mine, and Bobbie would want to get some teasers edited and posted as soon as possible.

After another five miles we got to the turnoff for Dugout Wells. The Texas National Guard had set up a fortified outpost here just in case it was needed. They built a secure building, fenced off the area, and built a large water tank that's kept filled by an old windmill. The area outside the fence is covered by automated sentry guns. The guns target anything within 100 yards of the fence that's moving and is large enough to mass more than 40 pounds. The animal rights groups demanded that they add infrared sensors to discriminate between infected and living animals, but those would be useless on a summer day around here. Besides, the place is usually ringed by dead critters, so the living animals tend to stay away. The National Guard sends a platoon down here every three months or so to make sure everything is working right, restock any supplies that have been used, reload the guns, and burn the accumulated carcasses. Other than that, the place doesn't see much use. It's illegal for civilians to be here without a permit, and I was the only one who had gotten a permit in decades. Anyone out here illegally is not likely to advertise that fact by entering a monitored government facility.

As I turned off the main road, there was a sign advising me not to go further without deactivating the guns covering the road. Since this safe house was intended to be available for anyone in trouble, there are several methods listed on the sign, including texting “Off” to a particular phone number, going to a specific page on the National Guard website, keying the mike five times at 1 second intervals on CB channel 9, or beeping your horn in the same pattern. I got out my pocket computer, entered the website, clicked the “Off” button, and waited until I got an acknowledgment. Agent-I-mean-Ranger Guillen started to drive around me, but I motioned for her to stay back. If there was a malfunction, my LAV could stand up to the guns better than her SUV.

As I approached the gate with Guillen riding my back bumper, it opened and I drove through. Once I cleared the gate she swerved around me and sped towards the building, skidding to a halt next to the door. She jumped out of the driver's seat, slammed her hand into the testing unit by the door, and stood there with her knees pressed tightly together while the lights flashed. Ah, that explained her hurry. As soon as the lights came up green and the door unlocked, she kind of hobbled inside. I parked next to her SUV, grabbed a bag of food and a change of clothes, and stepped outside. I hit the switch on the sterilizer to drain out the bleach mixture and put it into autoclave mode. Then I put my own hand in the testing unit, waited until it came up green, and strolled inside.

Setting my stuff down on a table and sticking the perishable food and a sixpack of Dr. Pepper in the fridge, I checked the monitors, seeing that the water tank was full and the batteries supplied by the solar array on the roof were fully charged. After flipping the switch to turn on the swamp cooler, I carried my fresh clothes to the shower rooms. The door to one was closed, so I chose the other. After stripping down and stepping into the stall, I found that I even enjoyed the bleach portion of the shower. It had been a hot, dry, dusty day, hotter than the average for this time of year, and even my summer armor makes me feel like I'm stewing in my own juices after a while. After drying off, I put on a clean pair of boxers and a t-shirt. Not expecting to have company on this trip, I hadn't exactly packed along any casual evening wear, and after the heat of the day I wasn't going to wear any more clothes than I had to. Going back into the main room, I found that Guillen wasn't out of the shower yet, and the swamp cooler was already bringing the temp down to a tolerable level. I dropped my armor and underclothes in the clothing sterilizer and sat down for the meticulous task of cleaning my guns and electronics. After a few minutes, Guillen came out wearing shorts and a nicely filled-out tank top, sat across from me and proceeded to clean her gun. Since she didn't get close to the zombies she didn't have to worry about contamination, just basic maintenance, and she finished quickly. After a while, I noticed she was eying my bag of food.

“Um, you did bring some supplies along?” I asked.

“Yeah, there's a case of MREs and a couple of cases of water in the truck,” she replied.

“Tell you what,” I offered, “I can spare a meal or two. If you're willing to cook, I'm willing to share.”

“Deal,” she said, grabbing the bag and heading to the kitchenette.

I do most of the cooking for me and Bobbie, and naturally all my own cooking in the field, but it was nice to have a break from kitchen duty. While the pleasantly domestic sounds and aromas filled the room, I continued my necessary chores. I had just set aside the last of my field cameras and leaned back when Agent Guillen set food in front of me.

As she set down across from me, I spoke up, “Oops, forgot to mention, you might want to avoid the chili.”

“Hey, I grew up in New Mexico, I can handle hot food,” she bragged.

“It's not that,” I explained. “The larger chunks are alligator, and a lot of people don't want to take a chance eating even non-mammalian carnivores.”

“I didn't think alligator was legal to sell. Where do you get it?” she asked. “And what possessed you to put it in chili?”

“It's not commercially available yet, but I get it from a ranch north of San Antonio. If you go through my archives you'll find out where. Hell, the gator that supplied it might even be on camera, but I'm assured it's not the one with the interesting chew toy. The chili is the last of a batch I made last month for 'Eat a Tasty Animal for PETA Day.' That same report will explain why I felt the need to include alligator. The rest of the meat is ordinary turkey and ostrich.”

She tried a spoonful with obvious trepidation, then dug in with relish. The rest of the meal passed in companionable silence. After washing the dishes, I grabbed another Dr. Pepper and sat back down for a more serious talk.

“Okay Agent Guillen, all cameras and recorders are off. I won't report anything without your approval, but I reserve the right to cancel this trip and go home,” I bluffed. “Level with me, what are you up to down here?”

“I'll tell you what I can. I'll guarantee that it's all true, but not the whole truth. Anything I withhold is for the safety of other agents, and for your own safety. And by the way, please call me Anna.”

Hmm, I'd been betting on 'Tony', the better to fit in with the masculine world of federal law enforcement. “Okay, Anna, I'm listening.”

“One of the drug cartels has been smuggling drugs and sex slaves in through Big Bend. Enforcement along the inhabited parts of the border has been stepped up enough that they're willing to risk going through a Class 3 zone. They were taking their 'cargo' up to the Marathon Truck Stop and putting it on trucks there, but with the cooperation of the owners we put a stop to that. We caught a couple by using drone surveillance along 385 and 118, and stepped up patrols along 90. Now all indications are that they are cutting cross country all the way up to I-10. That's a lot of territory to cover, so our best bet is to find where they are crossing the border. My task is to look for signs of traffic. A full DEA or Border Patrol search would be noticed. But your trip down here has been well publicized, so the idea was for me to tag along in a way that I could blend in. I'm expressly forbidden from seeking out or confronting the smugglers myself, I'm just supposed to follow you and keep my eyes open.”

I pondered that for a minute. “I see. And I suppose I'd be just as likely to stumble across a smuggling caravan without you as with you. I presume you have a plan for that.”

“Yeah,” she replied. “If we can't avoid them, I get on the radio and scream for help. There's a tactical squad with a helicopter standing by at an isolated farm house between here and Alpine. They can be here in half an hour.”

“I guess that settles it,” I said, leaning back with my drink.

Anna leaned forward, resting her chin on one hand. “You know,” she said, her other hand idly tugging at the neckline of her top and giving me a better look at her generous cleavage, “Since the cameras are off....” She trailed off, smiling coyly.

I knew where she was coming from. Fighting for your life and surviving gets the hormones surging. There's something about it that makes you want to do something to prove you're still alive. It wasn't my irresistible charm. Substitute any male that was reasonably close to her preferences and she probably would have felt the same way. Or female, if Anna swings that way. But I've been there often enough to have learned that the aftermath isn't always pleasant.

“Sorry, but the cameras have to come back on for that,” I explained. “Bobbie likes to watch. But she won't record without your permission.”

Anna angrily pushed herself back from the table, muttering “You really **are** crazy” as she stalked off to one of the bunks and climbed in.

I smiled inwardly, having seen that reaction often enough before. It's proven to be the best tactic for fending off advances from groupies. On the rare occasions when one of them isn't fazed by my girlfriend watching, well, Bobbie and I have agreed to give each other a little room to roam, and she really does like to watch.

Well, no rest for the wicked, at least not yet. I got out my pocket computer, logged on to the server, and downloaded Bobbie's cleaned up copies of today's video so that I could add some commentary. After that, I started writing a blog entry to be posted in the morning. I refrained from looking at the site stats, knowing Bobbie would be giving me any good news shortly. As soon as I transmitted the entry, Bobbie pinged me with a text.

_Guess what? I posted a teaser of your little play date with the zombie pack, that bit near the end where the 2 zombies were going all vampire on each other. It's already gotten 1.7 million hits, the page view counter is spinning so fast that the last 2 digits are just a blur. I had to set up 2 mirror sites and buy extra bandwidth just to keep up with demand. So far I've heard from 47 TV stations and 8 broadcast and cable networks wanting to buy the rights to show it, and I've got click-through revenue agreements with 17 major news blogs. Nobody has seen anything like it before._

Now that Bobbie had given me the top news, I could check the rest without stealing her thunder.

_I figured that would do well. And now I see that we're getting good numbers overall, and the Park Service seems especially pleased._

_Yep. Things are just humming along here, but your mom says you should be more careful. By the way, how are things going with your little friend? I looked her up on Facebook and she looks hot in a bikini._

I opened up another window and did my own search. Bobbie's right, Anna does look pretty good in a bikini.

_Well, she did try to seduce me a little while ago, but the 'Bobbie likes to watch' routine sent her off in a huff._

_Ha! I bet you a back rub that by the end of your trip she'll decide she doesn't care about the camera._

_You're on._

What the hell? Even if I lose, I win, both here and at home. It's not like giving Bobbie a back rub is some kind of hardship.

_Now you go get some sleep, you need it after today. Love you._

_Love you, too._

Bed suddenly seemed like a really good idea, so I found a bunk and promptly passed out.

 

* * *

_Just a short entry, because I've had a grueling day and the one ahead of me doesn't look any easier. I have danced with the dead yet again, and survived to post about it. The video from that and the rest of the day should be going up soon, and the segments Bobbie has already posted are proving to be very popular._

_Next up, the Basin._

  * **From _Anthropological Curiosity,_**

**the blog of Rob Phillips, April 4, 2040**




 

_You know what makes me sick? You know what makes me so angry I could chew cactus and spit needles? I've been editing Rob's video from his first day in Big Bend National Park, and it's absolutely beautiful. But this is the first time in decades that anyone but government employees has been allowed to see it. It should be cleaned out and opened to the public again, at least for guided tours. It wouldn't be that hard. Hell, Rob took out a third of the largest pack in the park by himself, imagine what a couple of platoons could do. Well, I admit he did have some help from his Park Circus nanny, guess she didn't turn out to be completely useless after all._

_Consider this: the government has gone to the trouble to keep the Grand Canyon open to tourists, and once you get over the big hole in the ground, there's nothing there to see. The average tourist spends less than an hour and a half there, and most of that is taken up by lunch. And that figure has held steady since before the Rising. After 18 hours in Big Bend, Rob has barely scratched the surface. But the federal government doesn't care about Big Bend, and our state government is no better. Governor Tate would probably order the whole place napalmed if he could. Part of me hopes the voters actually do send him to DC, because that seems to be the only way we'll get his worthless ass out of the Governor's mansion._

  * **From _Yes Sir! F*** You Sir!,_**

_**the blog of Bobbie Cardille, April 3, 2040**_





	3. A Chance Meeting and a Sad Duty

I was awakened by gunfire at around 2am, must have been something, make that a lot of somethings, trying to cross the perimeter. I got out of bed and went over to a bank of monitors for the external cameras. Once I flipped them on, they displayed active infrared images of a group of human infected approaching the outpost. Looks like some of the remaining pack from Panther Junction got ambitious enough to follow me all the way out here. I pulled up a chair and a jacked my pocket computer into the system to record the images while I watched the sentry guns mow down the zombies. By the time the last one fell, a counter on the central monitor reported that 47 targets had been engaged. That meant that in the last ten hours, the Panther Junction pack had been reduced by nearly 50%. On that note, I returned to bed and slept another three hours.

Once I got up again, my bladder sent me hurrying to the bathroom. Fortunately, this place is equipped with sterilization toilets, though I understand the main reason is to avoid having to maintain a septic tank. Afterward, I found a tea kettle and filled it, setting it on the stove. While the water heated, I sent the video from last night to Bobbie and got my armor out of the laundry. After fixing a mug of tea sweetened with a healthy dollop of mesquite honey, I got out a jar of saddle soap and sat down to condition my armor. A sterilizing wash is tough on leather, requiring frequent care. After a few minutes, Bobbie pinged me to let me know she was awake, so I grabbed the headset out of my helmet and talked quietly with her while I worked.

Site traffic was way up, we were well on our way to cracking the top 10% of news blogs. She was getting bids from overseas for yesterday's zombie video, looks like this trip was paying for itself already. The wildflower video from yesterday afternoon was proving as popular as I expected, and there were a couple of nurseries asking if I could collect some seeds on the way home. Bobbie had our lawyer looking into the legality of it. Collecting wildflowers along Texas highways was illegal, but 385 had been officially decommissioned 20 years ago so it might be okay.

By the time I finished with my armor, the sky was getting light outside, so I went out to get my weapons from the sterilizer and a couple of boxes of .45ACP from the gun locker. When I went back inside, Anna was showing signs of stirring, so I figured I'd start some breakfast. Nothing spectacular, just field rations, but at least a couple of grades above the Meals Ready to Excrete that Anna had out in her truck. But I did have a can of frozen biscuits so I set them to baking in the oven. While I was doing that, Bobbie signed off to devote her full attention to our site. As I was fixing myself a second cup of tea, I heard the bathroom door open and shortly after Anna sat down at the table.

“Sorry,” I apologized, “I don't have any coffee.”

“Not a problem,” she replied, “I'll grab some out of my MREs.”

With that, she made a quick trip outside. By the time she returned, breakfast was ready and I joined her at the table. I buttered a couple of biscuits and spread some prickly pear jelly on them. Anna followed suit, and after taking a bite she exclaimed, “Wow! I need to pick up some of this on the way home.”

After a few more minutes, she took a deep breath and said, “Look, I'm sorry about how I acted last night.”

“Don't worry about it,” I assured her, “I've been there before, I know how it goes.”

“Yeah, I guess you have. But that was the first time I'd fired a gun anywhere but at the range. I've done field ops, but so far all the perps I've helped bust gave up without a fight.”

“Then you handled yourself pretty damned good yesterday,” I pointed out. “If you'd like, I can give you a copy of the video so you can show off to your buddies.”

She smirked. “I'd like that, thanks.”

“Speaking of showing off, the Park Service was none too happy about you impersonating one of their people, but after yesterday they want to name you an Honorary Park Ranger and use the video of us in action to get more support in Congress. They're always trying to get more of the parks cleared out.”

Anna thought for a moment, then said, “Fine by me, as long as they keep quiet for another week. This is my first and last undercover gig, I'm mostly an analyst. But I'm fully qualified for field ops, so they grab me when they need an extra body for a big bust.”

I suppressed a comment about grabbing her body and a lame pun about 'big bust'. It's dangerous to feed me straight lines like that.

After a few minutes she spoke up again, “So, are you and Miss Cardille planning to get married?”

“Eventually,” I replied. “Right now I'm still carrying some debt from starting up my career, and with the low life expectancy of my job I can't get life insurance. So for now I want to keep our finances as separate as possible, just in case.”

“I thought she was a partner in your website?”

“She is, by any standard other than legally. Technically, I operate as a sole proprietorship and she is my employee. Luckily, she's not inclined to file sexual harassment charges.”

“She doesn't seem to like me much,” Anna said, “And what's with calling NPS the 'Park Circus'?”

“She doesn't like any changes to the plan, especially when I'm in the field for this long,” I explained. “It's nothing personal, in fact she says you look pretty hot in a bikini.” Anna blushed all the way down to her cleavage at that. “Bobbie got the Park Circus thing from my dad, he spent most of his 20s working National Park concessions.”

“Ah,” she said. “So, what's the plan for today?”

“The Chisos Mountain Basin. Going to head up there, look around, hike some of the shorter trails, and spend the night.”

She shuddered, “I hear there are mountain lions along the trails.”

“It's possible. There might be a few still shambling around after a quarter of a century.”

The Rising had largely spelled the end of mammalian carnivores. Eating the meat of any other mammal meant ingesting live-state Kellis-Amberlee. Even in the smallest mouse, the virus goes live when it dies, there just isn't enough of a viral load or enough brain mass for it to amplify. The only surviving specimens are domestic pets or in zoos, where their diet can be controlled, their food either processed enough to kill the virus or taken from fish or poultry. Coyotes are the only known exception. Even though Kellis-Amberlee wiped out more than 95% of them that summer, some populations survived. Coyotes have always been amazingly adaptable, one of the very few species to thrive after the encroachment of western civilization. Their diet has always included birds, lizards, and even large insects, and somehow a few learned to avoid mammals entirely.

Omnivores have fared a little better, if their diet is primarily vegetation. Javelina seem to be doing pretty well, and there are some reports of small surviving populations of black bears. Both of those animals were native to Big Bend before the Rising, but I don't hold out much hope for the bears still being around.

After we finished breakfast and cleaned up, Anna asked, “Is there anything I can do to help prepare for the day?”

Remembering something Bobbie had asked for, I said, “Yes. I need to get a digital map of you so that Bobbie will have an easier time editing you out of the footage.”

I set up six of my field cameras in a circle around a clear section of floor, then took the chain from around my neck and handed it to her. I've got a transponder hanging from the chain that allows my cameras to stay focused on me.

“Here, put this on, then get in the middle and move around. Walk in circles, jog in place, stretch, do some jumping jacks, try to go through your full range of motion.”

I admit, I threw in the jumping jacks mainly for my own viewing pleasure. I sent a text to Bobbie to give her a heads up and sat down at the table to watch while I thumbed .45 rounds into my empty magazines. Once I was done with that, I carefully checked over my bangstick, then wrapped friction tape around the grip of my trident. Edged weapons are usually a bad idea when dealing with the infected. You generally don't want to be carrying anything that has contaminated blood on it, and if it has a sharp edge the danger is multiplied. My trident is designed to be as safe as possible. The two spikes on the side are dull, even the tips are slightly rounded, and they guard the edges of the blade in the center. They are set just far enough apart for the average human neck to fit between them, and the center blade nearly fills the space in the middle. The whole thing is forged in one piece so there are no crevices for blood to lurk except the tape on the grip, and that is designed to dissolve completely when submerged in a bleach solution.

Just as I finished, I got a text from Bobbie.

_Ha! Jumping jacks? You're turning into a dirty old man before your time. You can tell her I've got enough, unless you want to watch a while longer. ;)_

As much as I was enjoying the view, it was time to get this show on the road. I motioned for Anna to stop and she handed back my chain. I folded up my cameras and stowed them in my pack. After a bathroom break, we finished getting dressed, tidied up, shut off the lights and the swamp cooler, and went out to the vehicles.

“By the way,” I said, “If you find yourself that desperate for a bathroom again, let me know. I'll find a place to stop and let you use mine.”

“You have a toilet in that thing?” she asked. “That's convenient.”

“Hey, you can legally squat behind a bush if you have to. If I water a tree, it's at least a Class B misdemeanor, up to a felony if I do it in a populated area.”

“Oh yeah, your nephrotic K-A. I forgot about that.”

We got into our trucks and drove out, the guns automatically shutting down from the time the gate opened until we cleared the outer perimeter. I crunched over a couple of fresh bodies in the road. Well, fresh in the sense that they had been ambulatory earlier this morning. No telling how many years they'd been walking around dead. Once I got to the main road, I turned back towards Panther Junction. On reaching the visitor center, I could see that the pack was still pretty stirred up. Probably the most excitement they'd had in years. Too bad I didn't have time to stop and play today. Another three miles brought me to the turnoff for the Basin. I made the turn, driving across the desert towards the mountains. Anna stayed just within view behind me. The road climbed gradually at first, winding between the foothills. It got a bit steeper as it got to the mountains themselves, but not much. As we reached Panther Pass, the desert scrub gradually gave way to junipers, the evergreens growing more numerous as we reached the highest point on the road, more than a mile in altitude.

The descent was steep enough to require switchbacks, though the first one wasn't too bad. I still slowed down quite a bit, as the mountains tend to get more variety in their weather than the desert, and the road surface was in correspondingly worse shape. The Park Service assured me the road was passable, having sent out a plane last week to check it out. The Basin was at the top of their wish list. After the first hairpin turn, it was more than a quarter mile to the next, and just past the midpoint of that stretch of road was a small parking area. This was the trail head of the Lost Mine Peak trail, the next of the five trails I was contractually obligated to hike. I pulled in and parked, climbing into the back as I heard Anna's Ford pull in beside me. This was the most strenuous hike planned for this trip, so I opted for a lightweight Kevlar jacket and buckled on a pair of tough plastic shin protectors instead of my heavier armor. Reluctantly, I also left my bangstick and trident behind, opting for a metal-shod and -studded staff that would double as a walking stick. After a precautionary visit to the 'facilities' I climbed out onto what was left of the pavement and waved for Anna to join me. She appeared wearing her NPS jacket, thick jeans, sturdy boots, and bearing a holstered sidearm and slung submachinegun.

“Ranger Guillen,” I said, “Since you proved to be such a help yesterday, Bobbie says she's willing to do the extra work of cleaning up the video if you'd like to come along and back me up.”

“Sure, I could stand to stretch my legs a bit,” she replied. “I didn't get much of a briefing when they pulled me out of the Caverns, so could you give me a heads up on what to watch out for?”

“Should be all animals. A few years after the Rising, the Army stationed a couple of companies here in the mountains. They cleaned out all the two-legged infected and made a pretty good start on the critters, both living and dead. The idea was to use the lodge as a beachhead for clearing the rest of the park, but the plan was dropped when public opinion went against it,” I grimaced. “Deer should be the biggest danger. Javelina don't generally come this high up the slope. Some chance of coyotes, the army used animal carcasses to bait them close enough to kill and the last week they were here there were no coyote sightings. Still, some might have survived farther up in the mountains or wandered back in from the desert since then. Might possibly some of those mountain lions you were concerned about. There is a miniscule chance of black bears. We know the army didn't account for one of the females, and it was the right time of the year for her to be pregnant. So _if_ she was pregnant, and _if_ she and her offspring avoided eating anything but fruit, nuts, lizards, and birds, and _if_ they didn't get bitten by infected deer before they could multiply, then maybe there might be some running, or shambling, around.”

“If there was just one female and maybe some cubs left, then how could...?” she trailed off. “Oh. A male cub. Ew.”

“That's supposed to be how the black bears were re-established in Big Bend about 50 years ago,” I explained, “A pregnant mama bear crossed the desert to get here before giving birth to a male cub.”

I remembered one more thing I needed to add, “It would be helpful if you could zigzag a bit on the straighter sections of the trail so that you don't block the same piece of scenery for too long. Makes it easier to fill in the image after editing you out.”

With that, I led the way to the trail, setting my helmet's GPS to guide me. I wouldn't need it much, this trail was one of many built by the Civilian Conservation Corps and it had held up fairly well. At the trail head, a rotting post leaned, bearing the rusted remains of a metal box and a section of heavy steel pipe with a slot in the top cap and a padlock hanging from the bottom. This was where hikers picked up trail guides, taking one from the box and dropping a quarter in the slot. Nothing but their own honesty prevented them from taking one or even all of them for free. It stood in mute testimony to the type of people who frequented Big Bend. I admit, the padlock belied the notion that all of them were quite so honest, but even then there was no need to make it secure enough to withstand someone with a few unobserved minutes and a hacksaw.

The first part of the trail was fairly straight, with shade from the junipers and increasing numbers of pinyon pines helping to keep the undergrowth to a manageable level. The few larger bushes that did manage to live in the trail just meant that Anna didn't have to think about zigzagging as she followed behind me. We were high enough in the mountains that the temperature was noticeably cooler than on the desert floor, and the walk was rather pleasant. As I stepped onto a patch of bare ground, I noticed an object in the trail ahead of me. A skull, and a rather large one. I'm not a zoologist, but it looked a bear skull to me, and seemed weathered enough to have been there for decades. It appeared we had found the missing black bear. Taking a close look around, I saw other bones scattered nearby, a few ribs, a thigh, some vertebrae. I'm only mostly certain it was a bear, no way I could tell if it was female, but there are people who could determine its sex, age, and how long it had been dead. Taking off my pack, I dug down to the bottom and uncased my 256 MP camera, swapping out the telephoto lens for a wide angle. I took detailed pictures of the bones I could find, carefully placing them back in the exact position I found them after I was done. Packing up the camera, I continued down the trail.

After about a mile, the ground rose more steeply, rising to the top of a ridge. Only a few scraggly trees clung to the slope, and we had our first unimpeded view of area. Down the other side of the slope was Juniper Canyon. It was on the outer rim of the mountains, but it was shaded due to being on the north side of the ridge, which combined with the runoff from infrequent rains allowed for lush vegetation. To the right was Casa Grande, the most famous and distinctive mountain in the park, dominated by the broad, tall, and steep upthrust of volcanic rock rising above its lower slopes. To the right of Casa Grande was the Basin, a wide valley ringed by the circle of mountain peaks. And across the Basin was the Window, a deep V-shaped notch in the mountain wall giving a view of the desert landscape beyond.

I paused for a moment, then turned to Anna and suggested, “This would be a good spot to take a break for a few.”

I picked a likely-looking rock and sat down, shrugging off my pack. Anna sat nearby, and we both looked out over the vista and took the opportunity to drink some water. After ten minutes I stood up again, putting on my pack and starting back up the trail. The trail mostly followed the top of the ridge, until it ran into another slope. Here the trail got very steep, a series of tight switchbacks climbing 600' in less than half a mile. The trail was cut into the rock, so it was still highly visible. But parts of it were covered by debris from higher up, making the going treacherous at some points. I was glad I brought the staff, and Anna wasn't too proud to accept a helping hand. Finally, we reached the top of another ridge, following it to the peak and the end of the trail. The view was spectacular. You couldn't really see for hundreds of miles, but it seemed that way. After standing quietly for a while, we started back down. For the most part, the return trip was easier, and we made good time. As we were about to descend back into the trees, movement in the sky caught my eye.

“Keep a close eye out,” I warned Anna, pointing to the vultures circling ahead of us.

They were above our path to the road. It might just be a dead squirrel that had caught their attention, but it could also be an infected animal. Zombies don't decay after amplification, but a turkey vulture has an amazingly sensitive nose and can smell a potential meal within minutes of its death. Flocks of them circling often indicate the presence of a zombie or even a pack. I've occasionally thought about how confusing it must be for them to find something that smells like food but is still walking around. We proceeded cautiously, watching all around us. Bobbie let me know that she was running the camera feeds through a program that highlights anomalous motion.

After another quarter mile, Bobbie's voice whispered in my ear, “Check your 10 o'clock.”

I looked to my left and saw him through the trees. He was dressed in hiking clothes, and moving quickly towards us. He was far fresher than I would have expected to find around here. I pointed him out to Anna and motioned her to stay back as I activated and dropped a field camera and went to meet him.

I blew sharply into my mike to let Bobbie know to start recording the audio, and put on my Irwin voice. “Well folks, Big Bend is still a popular destination after all. Look, a fellow hiking enthusiast is coming over to say 'hello'.”

As the zombie approached I reached out as though to shake his hand. When he lunged for me, I spun aside, putting the end of my staff in his path so that he tripped over it and sprawled face down on the trail.

“I'm sorry, that was terribly clumsy of me. Let me give you a hand,” I said, then tucked the staff into the crook of my elbow and applauded him as he clambered back to his feet.

He turned towards me and reached out with both arms. I planted the foot of my staff in his chest to hold him back, saying, “Take it easy fella, you're an attractive man and all that, but I don't swing that way.”

He moved to the side to get at me, and I circled to keep him at bay. A single zombie isn't very bright, so he kept trying the same tactic, with a continued lack of success. Somehow he found some extra speed, so it took some fancy footwork to keep the status quo. “Swing your partner, round and round....”

After the third complete circle he stumbled over a bush, landing in a sitting position on the ground. “Tired already? Maybe you'd better sit out the next dance.”

He managed to get up again and staggered towards me. “Okay, now you're just getting a little too pushy. I bid 'good day' to you, sir!”

I thrust the staff over his arm and into his armpit, using the leverage to turn him towards the downhill side of the trail. If he'd had the sense to stop reaching out for me, he could have easily freed himself. But, as noted before, isolated zombies aren't that smart. Once he was pointed the right way, I disengaged the staff, then moved behind him and sent him off the trail with the firm application of the sole of my boot to his ass.

Turning back to Anna, I mimed tipping a hat and asked, “Would you like to do the honors?”

She nodded, raising her SMG and putting a round through the back of his head. She walked up to me, looking down at the corpse. “I wonder what he was....”

“Stop!” I interrupted her, “I don't want to know, I don't even want to speculate. Humanizing zombies too much makes it harder for me to do what I just did. Bobbie will capture some good stills and send them to the police, and do what she can to identify him on her own. Whatever she learns, she knows not to tell me.”

We continued back down the trail, keeping vigilant in case he wasn't the only one shambling around out here. We hadn't quite gotten out of site of the body before the first vulture glided in for lunch. The rest of the hike passed uneventfully, and we arrived back at our vehicles a little while before noon. As I was dropping the staff in the sterilizer, Anna asked if she could borrow my toilet. I let her in and gave myself a precautionary bleach rubdown, keeping an eye on the nearby woods. Having recently mused on the feeding habits of vultures, I wasn't quite in the mood for lunch, so I suggested driving the rest of the way down to the Basin first. Anna didn't argue. Mounting up, we got back on the road. After cautiously negotiating a few more hairpin turns, we came into view of the Basin again. Unlike the slopes, desert vegetation dominated the floor. But now that we'd come partway around the bulk of Casa Grande, I could see the lodge to the south. There the trees kept a foothold, benefiting from the extra protection from the sun that the mountains provided. Finally, we reached the relatively level road at the bottom. The going was less hazardous, so I used the opportunity to check in with Bobbie and get the latest news.

“Hey there hot stuff, how are things going on the home front?” I inquired.

“Watch the language, your mom is up for a visit.”

“Hi mom!” I said

“Hi son,” Mom replied. “You really should be more careful, you could have been bitten. But you won't pay me no never mind, so I'll just toddle off downstairs so you don't have to censor yourself.”

I heard the door to our computer room close. “So, how long was she watching?”

“Oh, she was here for all of your hike. When you were playing with your 'fellow hiking enthusiast' I thought she was going to end up rolling on the floor laughing. She actually cracked a smile.”

“Wow. Wish I could have seen that.” I chuckled.

“Meanwhile, in business news,” Bobbie said, “the full video of the zombie fight from yesterday has been up for 6 hours and has driven site traffic up another couple of percentage points. The Park Circus paid a nice fee for the rights to use it, and are already trumpeting about how one of their rangers, with assistance from an unspecified civilian, managed to wipe out a good chunk of the infected in the park. Seven other government agencies have bought it to add to their libraries of training videos. And it is selling well to other news organizations. So long as you don't seriously screw up, the rest of this trip is pure profit. Based on past and current trends, I am tentatively moving M-Day up to mid July.”

“Glad to know I'm out here risking life and limb for a good reason,” I said.

“Don't be silly, you know you'd pay to do this if that's what it took. In site news, I had to call in a couple of moderators. Some of your groupies, the ones who fantasize about going zombie hunting with you, are seriously hatin' on your little friend.”

“I'm not surprised,” I admitted.

“So, you're headed down to the Window this afternoon?” Bobbie asked.

“Yep. And since I'll be going alone, can you call up one of your minions to keep watch around the vehicles?”

“Sure thing. And I'll let your mom know when you start down the trail,” Bobbie said. “Well, not everyone has time to enjoy a drive in the country, some of us have work to do. Talk to you later, love you.”

“Love you too.”

I took the turnoff towards the campground, figuring this would be a good time to fulfill another Park Service request. A number of the campsites held the burned-out husks of cars, vans, pop-up trailers, and small RVs. According to rumor, shortly after the army arrived a couple of soldiers got the idea to supplement their pay by rummaging through abandoned vehicles. Supposedly they were surprised, make that fatally surprised, to find that some of the RVs were still occupied. The army burned the remaining ones as a precaution. Remarkably, official reports showed only two casualties for the entire operation. Both of them occurred in the first week.

After a few minutes of driving through the campground, I found what I was looking for. I needed a camp site, in decently good shape and free of debris. This one was perfect. There must still be some wildlife, emphasis on the 'life', around here, as what few plants had managed to gain a foothold in the hard-packed dirt and gravel showed signs of having been grazed upon and there were spots where smaller plants had been rooted out completely. The picnic table and the shelter over it were in good shape. It was one of the sturdier ones, a sheet metal roof supported by a pair of rock walls, with the table and benches supported by the wall on one end and heavy steel posts on the other. And the grill was still standing upright. I drove around the loop again and stopped where a thicket of mesquite trees blocked my view of the campsite. Anna pulled in behind me as I got out.

“Lunchtime,” I called out, carrying a pack of food and a Dr. Pepper over to the picnic table. I looked around, this place was perfect. The mesquite and a truly impressive prickly pear cactus blocked any view of the other campsites and the burned-out hulks of vehicles. Anna followed with an MRE pack and we both sat down. I chose to eat mine cold, while she went to the trouble of using MRE heaters to warm up her entree and make a cup of coffee.

“Hey,” Anna said, “If you need to check in with your girlfriend, don't mind me.”

“Thanks, but I already did,” I replied.

“How's she doing?” Anna asked.

“She's just thrilled. The money is rolling in, and I should have everything but the LAV paid off in July. That means we'll be able to get married.” I'd gotten the note on the LAV paid down enough that, worst case, the scrap metal value would cover the rest. Even a 'light' armored vehicle has a lot of steel in it.

“You'd better invite me,” she mock-snarled. I grinned and nodded in reply.

Once lunch was done, I headed back to the LAV to grab some props. As I was setting up a small 2-man tent, Anna spoke up.

“You're going to sleep in a TENT? You're even crazier than I thought.”

“No way in hell,” I assured her. “This is just to set the scene. In a few months, you'll be able to enjoy an 'authentic camping experience' from the comfort of your own home.”

Once the tent was up, I tied the entry flap back and unrolled a sleeping bag inside. Then I went over to the grill, cleaned it out, poured some charcoal, and lit it. I set up cameras in the tent, in front of the grill, and at the table, and placed three more around the site. Bobbie would edit the video to give the illusion of the viewer walking around, and add some realistic food cooking over the charcoal. Bobbie is good with hardware and software, but her real talent is video editing. She was running her own business when she was 14, which is why she does the books for Texas Zombie Reporter. She had business accounting down pat while I was still doing minimum wage summer jobs. She's famous enough that a few years back there were accusations that she was faking or at least enhancing footage of some of my exploits. A few months of sending real-time feeds to Video Journalists of America proved to most of my colleagues and the public that yes, I really was that crazy.

Once I was done, I sat down next to Anna again. “I'm taking a hike down to the Window and back, but I need to do this one alone.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Its personal, and very important to me.”

“If you insist,” she said. “I guess I'll kick back in the truck.”

“That would be best. If you do need to stretch your legs, stay close to the vehicles, there will be someone monitoring the cameras.” Which reminded me, I pulled a spare headset out of my pack and handed it to her. “That'll let them contact you. It wouldn't hurt if you walked past the campsite in full ranger gear once in a while, it would add to the illusion.”

“I might do that,” she said.

“I might be three or four hours, but I'll be back by dark.”

“Be careful,” she warned.

“Never,” I said, and started walking.

A few minutes brought me to the campground trail head, and I stepped onto the trail itself. This would be the longest hike of the trip, so I stuck with the Kevlar jacket and staff. There wasn't much change in elevation so most of the walk would be easy. The main drawback was that it would be downhill on the way out and uphill coming back. Even a shallow slope seems steeper at the end of the day. The path was distinguishable mainly due to having been one of the most used trails in the park, thousands of pairs of feet a year left an enduring mark on the landscape. Brush made the going more difficult than I expected, and I often had to leave the trail entirely. After about half a mile, the trail met a dry creek that drained much of this side of the Basin, and I abandoned the trail to follow the rocky watercourse. The Park Service would prefer otherwise, but they'd be happy so long as I made it to the Window. I was never more than a few hundred feet from the trail at any point, usually much closer, and after a while the trail began crossing back and forth across the creek. As I got closer to the end, the trail and creek stayed very close to each other as they snaked between a pair of volcanic dikes. It was at this point that I saw the first signs of water, the remnants of spring rains filtering through the rocky soil. I moved back onto the trail, which was now on bare rock. Steps frequently led to stepping stones in the creek bed, which now carried a small flowing stream as more water seeped into it.

Finally, I arrived at the Window. I stood there for a while, nothing but a dozen feet of slick, wet rock separating me from the sheer drop to the desert below. I gazed out at the vast landscape before me, until I heard Bobbie's voice through my headset.

“Your mom is here, and I've stopped recording.”

“Okay, I'm ready,” I replied.

I reached into my pack and pulled out the small metal urn. I unsealed the lid to reveal a portion of my father's ashes, and I dropped them into the small stream a pinch at a time, watching them flow over the edge. Once I was done, I stood in silence for a few minutes more, then started back up the trail.

It's a good thing no infected animals were around, because I probably wouldn't have noticed them. I barely paid enough attention to keep my footing on the hike back. Before I realized it, I found myself back at the campground. I walked back to the campsite, packed everything up, and made sure the fire was out. I worked in silence. Anna must have sensed my mood, as she waited patiently, and followed me quietly as I got back in the LAV and drove off. It was only a short drive to the Basin Amphitheater where I intended to spend the night, preferring to park in the middle of the relatively broad expanse of the parking lot rather than the confines of the campground. You would expect sunset to come early in the Chisos Mountains, until you realize that the sun is dropping towards the Window and will disappear below the distant horizon rather than the closer peaks. By the time I had parked and exited the LAV, my good mood had returned, and I smiled at Anna as she joined me.

I saw movement at the edge of the parking lot, and I motioned for Anna to hold still. She followed my gaze and saw the herd of javelina in the brush nearby. She started to raise her SMG and I put my hand on the barrel to push it back down.

“They're alive,” I whispered.

“How can you be sure?” she whispered back.

“They're digging for roots, and they've got young with them. Not even all of the adults get above forty pounds, the young can't be much more than ten. If the adults had converted, they'd be eating the little ones instead of plants.”

“So if they are hanging around, that means that this area is pretty much clear of infected,” Anna noted.

“Right,” I agreed. “Not that javelina are all that perceptive, but it's still a pretty good bet.”

I grabbed a heavy burlap sack out of the LAV and walked down into the amphitheater. Reaching the fire pit, I upended the sack and a pile of wood tumbled out. I arranged the wood properly, unwrapped a firestarter, lit the end, and placed it under the center of the pile. The dry wood caught quickly, and soon a quite respectable campfire was blazing. That done, I set up cameras at strategic locations amongst the benches, and returned to the LAV.

Anna watched as I worked, then asked, “I didn't think you were supposed to have wood fires in National Parks.”

“The Park Service specifically asked for this,” I replied, “But they did insist I bring my own wood. Once Bobbie has enough footage, she'll set it up so that they can splice in old films of Ranger talks.”

Back at the parking lot, we stood outside for about an hour, taking turns observing the javelina rooting in the twilight and keeping watch in case any dangerous critters showed up. As the sun finally dropped below the horizon, my instincts said to settle in someplace safe. But I wasn't going to pass up this opportunity.

Turning back to Anna, I asked, “Want some hot dogs?”

“Sure!”

I got the turkey dogs, buns, and fixings out and headed back down to the fire, carefully cutting a pair of long, thin mesquite branches on the way. We sat at the edge of the pit, facing so that we could watch each other's backs. Once skewered on the mesquite branches, the hot dogs were held out over the coals until they started to blacken on the outside before being placed into the buns. Anna liberally doctored hers from an MRE-sized bottle of hot sauce, I went with my preferred barbecue sauce and mustard. Once the food was gone, I packed up the cameras, made sure the fire was out, and we headed back to the vehicles. After an exchange of “Goodnight”s we both locked ourselves in, and I logged onto the site for a while before falling asleep.

 

* * *

 

_I saw a small herd of javelina today, live ones, and it got me to thinking. Zoologists claim that the average size of javelina is gradually declining as natural selection slowly does what domestic pet breeders are doing intentionally. The same is happening with other wild animals whose weight range at breeding age straddles the viral amplification limit. Because of Kellis-Amberlee, animals under 40 pounds are more likely to survive long enough to breed. At least, those animals that are born in litters. Being under 40 pounds doesn't keep the individual animal from being attacked and killed, but that does mean that it won't rise up after death and attack its siblings and their offspring. So, just as you are more likely to survive long enough to reproduce if your house pets are Chihuahuas rather than Great Danes, wild animals have a better chance to breed if their family group tends to run smaller than 'critical mass'._

  * **From _Anthropological Curiosity,_**

**the blog of Rob Phillips, April 4, 2040**




 

_I have a special message for a few of the weekend bicyclists out there: Yo, Dumbass! Stop signs apply to you too! Now I know the percentage of bike riders who are completely self-absorbed morons is small, but that percentage is also the most visible, at least after the fact. Luckily I've seen enough of them that I was prepared for the two I encountered this morning to do something asinine, so when they blew through a stop sign and rolled out into the street right in front of me I was able to dodge them. _

“ _But...but...but car drivers like_ _you need to watch out for  us.” Yes, there are stupid drivers, and I curse them far more foully than anything you'll read here because they not only endanger themselves, they endanger me and my loved ones. But when you pull something as monumentally stupid as what I saw today, even the most cautious and bicycle-aware driver, like me, is liable to smear your ass across the pavement. At least these two chose to show off their macho bike cred by risking their lives in a Level 7 zone where the residents would be prepared to deal with the aftermath. Not that they would have likely risen up after the aforementioned ass-smearing, because apparently that's where their heads were. _

  * **From _Yes Sir! F*** You Sir!,_**

**the blog of Bobbie Cardille, March 24, 2040**





	4. Undead Deer, Fan Service, and Pay Per View

I woke up before dawn. Looking through the side vision block at Anna's truck, it appeared that she was still asleep, so I fixed myself a mug of tea and logged on to the site for a while. Bobbie was already up and working. She doesn't sleep much when I'm out in the field, but she makes up for it when I get back. After the customary lengthy and strenuous welcome home celebration, she'll usually sleep for a good 15 hours. She took a break from her work to catch me up on the latest news. She'd finished editing the video from Tuesday and had sent it to the Park Service, and they had already paid for it, plus a bonus. They really were anxious for it. Site traffic was still holding strong and revenue was the best we'd ever seen. The footage of my encounter with the zombie hiker had been posted in the evening and was quickly picked up by some of the late night talk shows. No doubt the video would get even more attention once the lawsuit was announced, dammit. The hiker had been identified, and the family was upset. The suit would be dismissed, they always are, and those same talk shows would share the legal expenses. But in the meantime, I would have to learn more about the hiker than I wanted to.

By the time Bobbie went back to work and I'd had some breakfast, it was getting light outside. The sun wasn't up over the mountains from where I was, but the peaks to the west were fully lit. I went outside and watched the sunlight gradually creep towards me. About the time the sun finally peeked over the mountains, Anna joined me.

“So, what's on the agenda for today?” she asked.

“I want to stop by the lodge while we're here, then the Hot Springs, Boquillas Canyon, and Rio Grande Village.”

“Any infected to watch for?”

“Since the Rising happened during the hottest part of the summer, there weren't many people camping there. But there was a fair sized village just across the river, and there's a ford that the infected could cross. We'll be close to the river, obviously, so the chance of infected animals is higher. No bears, but there might be anything else that's native to the area, plus possibly horses and donkeys. Could even be beavers.”

After a few more minutes we got on the road for the short drive over to the Chisos Mountain Lodge. This was not on the NPS wish list, having been a commercial operation, but I wanted to check it out. The guest room buildings were mostly intact, but showing signs of years of neglect. At the main lodge building, the large plate glass windows facing out on the Basin were shattered. I pulled around and parked outside the main entrance. All of the doors I could see were closed, a welcome sign from a safety perspective, not so welcome to a stark raving mad zombie-baiter like me. Still, the broken windows in the dining room would provide access to all sorts of critters, so there was some hope of a little action to help me finish waking up. I was back to full armor and weapons for this excursion, just leaving the M-79 behind because using it indoors is not a pleasant experience. Anna followed, her SMG at the ready, as I opened the door and stepped inside with handgun drawn. We were in a large gift shop area, and along the inside wall was a diner-style lunch counter. There had been a broad opening leading into the dining room, but the army had brought building materials and walled it off, leaving a standard size door for access.

I cautiously walked across the room to the door. It had a peephole, possibly salvaged from one of the guest rooms. I peered through and the dining room beyond appeared empty. I opened the door and entered the room. Still no sign of movement, but it had clearly been occupied recently. Dirt and sand had been blown or tracked onto the floor, inches deep in the corners, and there were clear deer tracks and bedding spots. Much of the glass from the broken windows had been scraped to the side. I figured they must be out taking advantage of the relatively cool morning. The army had added latches to the kitchen doors, which were still closed. Anna and I carefully worked our way through the building, assuring that every room was empty, and then made our way back to the gift shop. I took a good look around. The more valuable items and any perishable food or candy was long gone. Much of what was left was badly deteriorated. But in a storage room I found books, t-shirts, stuffed animals, and stacks of postcards that were all still sealed in plastic and good as new.

As I was stacking the goods on the counter and loading them into my former firewood bag, Anna said, “Isn't this looting? I don't think _Target v. Taylor_ applies.”

“You're partially right, _Taylor_ only covers goods that are essential to survival. Although courts have been generous in interpreting that decision, it wouldn't stretch this far. This falls under _Harvey v. Amfac Parks and Resorts.”_

“I haven't heard of that one,” Anna said.

“Neither had I before last week,” I admitted. “But I wanted some souvenirs so I got my lawyer doing some research. Under _Amfac,_ this should qualify as legitimate salvage. While the lodge was operated by a private company, the building and land are owned by the government. When the company stopped paying concession fees, they legally abandoned any property they left here.”

“Wouldn't they have filed an insurance claim?” Anna asked.

“Yep. Or wrote it off on their income taxes, the lawyer is still trying to find out which. He consulted with a salvage law attorney, who says that worst case I should be able to get a 50% salvage award, but thinks I could probably settle by paying the 2014 value.”

I hauled my booty out to the LAV, then discovered we'd taken a little too long. A series of grunts drew my attention to the right, where a mule deer buck was approaching. His gaunt, haggard appearance proclaimed him as infected, and the chorus of answering grunts from the nearby trees announced that he wasn't alone. I shoved Anna back through the door and followed her, tossing my salvage across the room and drawing a handgun. She started to close the door, but I stopped her. Her instincts were just fine for more populated areas, where the best tactic is usually to lock yourself in and wait for help. But there would be no rescue here.

“Get behind the counter and get ready. I'll hold the door as long as I can and then lead them away from you.”

The lead buck reached the entrance and I put a round through his skull, then kicked his body out of the way before he could collapse in the doorway. I looked out at the other deer. They were scattered and strung out, so that they would reach me one or two at a time, and as long as I held the door they couldn't surround me. The first ones were within ten feet but moving slowly, so most of my shots were right on target. A couple of them took two shots, and unfortunately my magazine ran dry on a miss. I backed away from the door, hurriedly drawing my other handgun and my trident. Anna shot the first deer that followed me in, and I was ready for the next. The herd was down to four by then, and we calmly picked them off as they shambled through the door.

Once we were sure there were no more coming, I pulled a couple of test kits out of my pack. After we tested clean, we bagged them up and I dropped them in the biohazard bin in the LAV. After a precautionary field scrub down, I loaded up my new souvenirs and we headed out. As we drove back to the road out of the mountains, Bobbie pinged my headset to let me know she wanted to talk.

“Go ahead.”

“You forgot something, hero,” she said.

“Yeah, I know, the field cameras. I was in kind of a rush.”

“No biggie, between your helmet and the cameras on the LAV, I got enough coverage. But don't let it happen again, unless you have to.”

“I'll pledge my life to get you better footage in the future.”

“Don't go that far, I want you back in one piece. And on that note, I'll leave you to your driving. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

The climb out of the Basin was a little less nerve-wracking now that I knew what to expect. After a careful ascent up to the pass, the drive was pleasant and we made good time. We turned right once we got down to the main road, and soon passed Panther Junction. None of the remaining pack was in view. Besides, there wasn't time to stop here and play with the zombies, so we continued on. After consulting with Anna, I decided we did have time to stop at the Dugout Wells outpost for a quick shower and some laundry. Once that was accomplished, we got back on the road and entered new territory. The road was a straight ribbon of broken asphalt stretching through unrelieved desert. But there was still life out here. The wildflowers and cacti were blooming. In the space of a mile I saw two roadrunners and a coyote. No, the coyote wasn't wearing rocket-powered roller skates, and he wasn't chasing either of the roadrunners.

About ten miles from Dugout Wells, the road finally gained some noticeable curves. We passed the turnoff for River Road East, which we would be taking tomorrow, and arrived at Tornillo Creek, which drains most of the eastern half of the park. And it was crossed by the only real bridge in the park, supported by piers across the nearly quarter mile wide creek bed. Rather, it used to be supported by piers, but now three sections of the bridge had collapsed. Fortunately, the bed was fairly level, more like a sunken section of desert than a watercourse. After a few minutes to pick the best spot to descend, we drove across the creek and back up on the other side. Once back on the road, another minute or so of driving brought us to the road to the Hot Springs, my next planned stop. We made the turn, and the road was in decent shape. Unfortunately, even if they'd just finished building the road yesterday I'd have had a problem. My original plan had been to take River Road East and walk across Tornillo Creek. But the addition of Anna to this expedition meant I had another option. About halfway down the road, I pulled off to the side and got into my hiking gear. I got out of the LAV and stood next to it, sticking out my thumb. Anna had started to get out of her Ford, but instead she started it up again and pulled up next to me.

“Hey lady,” I said, “Can I bum a ride?”

“I dunno, Mama always warned me about picking up hitchhikers. But I guess you're cute, so hop on in.”

I hit the remote to activate the LAV's security system, then got in next to Anna and placed a camera on the dash to catch the view ahead. Anna drove carefully, habit making her take the right fork when the road split. She slowed down further as the road narrowed. Past this point, it was cut into the wall of a steep ravine, and I could have reached out and touched the rock wall outside my window.

“Wow, I see why you couldn't take your truck down here. No way it would have fit.”

“Yep,” I agreed. “Even when this road was maintained it was impassable to anything larger than a van.”

“What would you do without me?” she asked, grinning.

“I'd have hiked it.”

After more than half a mile of difficult travel, the ravine flattened out and the two roads reunited. A short while later we got to the parking lot, parked, and got out. A small stone-walled house stood next to the parking area. The roof was long gone even when Big Bend was in operation, but we checked it out just in case. We moved back past the vehicles and towards the J.O. Langford store/post office. It was large fieldstone structure, with minor architectural flourishes not seen in other local buildings from the early 20th century. There were shallow arches over the doors and windows, and the facade extended above the roof line. A tall palm tree stood at the right front corner. As we got closer, I could see that much of the roof had collapsed into the interior. The Park Service had taken care to maintain the roof in order to protect murals painted on the interior walls. I was a bit saddened to see how much further they had faded, compared to pictures from before the Rising, since being exposed to the elements. The remains of the roof provided potential shelter, so I tossed a rock into the center of the room and waited for any reaction. When nothing came out and tried to eat my face, we moved on.

Although we'd be seeing it again later, I detoured to check the hotel building. Not much to see there, just a rectangular structure divided up into a handful of rooms. I turned around and led the way to the trail up to the top of the bluff. It was about a quarter mile to the Langford house, located near the cliff above the springs. The house was in poor shape, being located on top of the hill where it had no protection from the occasional high winds. Several of the walls had collapsed. After looking around for a minute, I found a feature that was not found on the official NPS trail guide, but something that my dad had mentioned. It was hole by the edge of the cliff, going completely through an overhang and into the empty space beyond. There were still signs of a small structure that had been built around it. Instant outhouse, no need to dig a pit.

I moved a little farther down the cliff face, to a spot overlooking the old bathhouse. I took out one of my field cameras, extending one leg to its maximum length and leaving the other three short. I positioned it at the cliff edge, the long leg almost parallel to the ground and weighted down with small rock, two of the others holding the camera a few inches out from the cliff face to give a view down to the hot springs. After that, we continued along the trail to the point where it descended down to river level. Here the trail forked, one leg covering several miles to Rio Grande Village, the other leading back along the river to where we started.

We walked back towards the hot springs along the riverbank, ranging about 20' to 60' wide between the cliff and the river. It was a short walk to the remains of the bathhouse. The walls were long gone, but enough of the structure was left to hold a pool of water large enough for half a dozen or so people, more if they were friendly. I set up a field camera on the trail, and moved past the springs to put one where the trail the other way was screened by a patch of river cane. If we got any unexpected company, I wanted plenty of warning.

That done, I set one of my handguns by the pool, dropped my pack, and stripped down to my boxers and helmet. Nothing like a little fan service for my groupies to boost site traffic. I walked into the pool, found a comfortable spot, and sat down, leaning back so that the hot water covered most of my chest.

Looking up at Anna I asked, “Care to join me, Ranger Guillen?”

“You're out of your freaking mind,” she said, “But I think the insanity is contagious.”

She stripped down to her tank top and shorts then, after clearly thinking about it for a moment, dropped the shorts as well to reveal a pair of plain white panties. I was disappointed to see she was wearing a bra, but I realized it was mostly necessary for her. She saw where I was gazing and smirked, turning around to slip her bra out from under her top. She entered the pool carrying her handgun, and set it down on edge of the pool when she settled into a spot across from me. She also leaned back, but the water didn't quite come up to her breasts. Though after a few minutes the absorbent action of the cotton thoroughly dampened the fabric to the point where it clung to every contour.

(“Woohoo!” Bobbie almost shouted through my headset, “That should drive site traffic up by at least a third.”)

“How hot is this water?” Anna asked. “I wouldn't expect hot water to feel this good after the heat of the day, but it's wonderful.”

“It's about 105 degrees. It's supposed to be the cure for anything that ails you. Langford claimed it cured his malaria. People would come from across the country and pay as much as $5 for the 21 day treatment regimen that helped him.”

“Damn, don't think I can afford that much.”

We soaked for about another half an hour, keeping watch for unwelcome visitors but otherwise relaxing and chatting idly. I just thinking it was time to get out but not wanting to make the effort when Bobbie's voice came over my headset.

“Time to start drying off, loverboy, if you want time for lunch.”

I lightly tapped the side of my helmet to let Anna know I wasn't talking to her and asked, “What are the numbers looking like?”

“Already more than 200 logged on and paid.”

“Whoa! Nope, definitely don't want to disappoint the fans.”

I stood up and looked down at Anna, “I'm afraid it's time to go.”

“Do I have to?” she mock-whined as she got up.

“Sorry.”

We moved back to dry ground and wrung out our underwear as best we could without getting completely naked, then dried our exposed skin with a towel from my pack. I decided to see if I could buy us a little more time to air-dry. I pulled up the camera management app on my pocket computer and selected the camera at the top of the cliff above us. I handed the computer to Anna.

“Give me about five seconds to get ready then tap the “Shutdown” button.”

“Okay.”

She hit the button and one extended leg retracted. I had set it up right, and the leg pulled out from under the rock holding it down rather than pulling the camera back from the cliff. As it fell towards me I deftly caught it and stowed it in my pack. The breeze coming from the south didn't pick up much moisture on its brief passage across the Rio Grande, and were soon as dry as we were going to get. With no more reason to delay, we got dressed. Watching Anna get back into her bra was even better than watching her take it off, matched only by watching her bend over to pick it up first. After I picked up and stowed the other two cameras, we headed back towards the parking area. As we walked, I pointed out the cliff swallow nests attached to the cliffs above us. The rock here fractures into flat, rectangular blocks. That not only provided materials for the Hot Springs buildings, but also left corners with overhangs where the swallows could build their mud nests.

I was also closely watching the lower end of the cliff as we walked. Finally, I saw a hint of what I was looking for through the brush. I squeezed my way through the foliage and to the cliff face. There I found pictographs drawn on the cliff face. They had already been there for centuries when the Europeans first came. Dad says that when he first started coming to Big Bend, they were known to some of the tourists and had been mentioned in magazine articles, but the Park Service wouldn't admit to their existence. Finally, the NPS realized they couldn't keep the drawings a secret anymore and publicized, hoping that greater awareness would protect them from vandalism when secrecy was no longer possible. Remembering my dad's instructions, I found a section of less common red pictographs, marred where some asshole had knocked chips out of the rock.

After getting video for the Park Service and some pictures for my own collection, I led Anna back to her truck. We tried to take the other side of the split road going back, but found a damaged spot that we couldn't pass. With no place to turn around and a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, Anna backed up a couple of hundred feet and took the road we had used on the way in. After getting back to the LAV I recommended food, and we sat on the tailgate of the Ford and ate a cold lunch.

“So, what were you talking with Bobbie about earlier?” Anna asked.

“We've got a live pay-per-view webcast scheduled in a little while,” I replied.

“What about?”

“You'll find out. Here, let me borrow your PDA.”

She handed it to me and I used it to access the site, putting in one of my single-use admin passwords to get her onto the PPV page for free. “Here, now you can watch from safety while I do something insane. When we get within sight of the tunnel, I need for you to stop. I'd appreciate it if you would turn on the camera I left on the dash and make sure it's pointed at the tunnel mouth. Bobbie could always use another camera angle.”

“Okay, I'll do that.”

I got back in the LAV and led the way back to the allegedly paved road. I noticed that Bobbie had added a countdown timer and a hit counter to the forward view monitor. The time was down to just over 15 minutes, and we were quickly approaching 1000 viewers. I'd used up less than 5 of those minutes by the time we passed the turnoff for Old Ore Road and rounded a curve that brought us in sight of the tunnel. I stopped and looked down the road. This was a major part of the reason I'd been approved for this journey.

The 300' tunnel ahead of me was the coolest, most sheltered spot in all of the surrounding desert. It was a very popular hangout for zombies of all species during the heat of the day. When the army was in Big Bend, they sent two patrols down this way. They survived, and they put down many of the infected, but they weren't able to get through. They were preparing to send a platoon when their mission was canceled. There was no practical way around on the ground, or there wouldn't be a tunnel in the first place. The only other road access means going through Mexico and fording the river. Driving cross country means a long and hazardous detour. You could hike, but that requires being miles away from your vehicle with a known pack of infected in between. There's the river, but it's too shallow for any boat large enough to have an enclosed cabin, so that leaves you with no place to hole up.

The other applicants to enter Big Bend all had quite capable 4WD vehicles. But mine had a few capabilities that theirs didn't. For one thing, the LAV-300 is amphibious. The Park Service expected me to follow Tornillo creek to the Rio Grande, take the river to Rio Grande Village, and use the old border crossing from Boquillas to get back onto land. 

The Park Service didn't know me very well.

 

* * *

_Let me tell you a story. Way back in the deep, dark past, (1976 to be precise) a TV series was filming on location in a Long Beach, CA, fun house that was soon to be torn down. A crew member was moving a wax mannequin which had been hanging from a gallows and, in keeping with the decor of this particular establishment, may quite possibly have been painted day-glow orange. In the course of this relocation, one of the mannequin's appendages broke off. Stories vary as to which one, and it really doesn't matter. What matters is that this unfortunate accident revealed human bone. That's right, the fake hanged man that no doubt inspired many children to shriek in a mixture of delicious fear and glee had once been a real little boy._

_The famous and outspoken medical examiner Thomas Noguchi, himself the inspiration for the title character of a TV series of that same period, examined the corpse. Foreign objects were found in his mouth, including a 1924 penny. These clues were sufficient to start a chain of research that led to the corpse's identity._

_Elmer McCurdy was a nondescript and not very successful bandit, most famous for a train robbery that netted himself and his fellow robbers a total of $46 and a few bottles of whiskey. But Elmer did not profit from even those meager ill-gotten gains, for a posse was soon on the gang's trail. In the climactic gun fight, Elmer famously proclaimed, “You'll never take me alive.”_

_That prophecy came true, and Elmer's body was delivered to the undertaker. When no one claimed the body for burial, the undertaker preserved it and put Elmer on display. In exchange for viewing the body, you were expected to place a nickel in Elmer's mouth. Carnival men offered to buy Elmer, but the undertaker was loathe to give up a steady source of income. After all, what if his day job suddenly declined in demand or perhaps became unimaginably dangerous? The morticians of 2014 could no doubt empathize even if they wouldn't condone._

_But finally, through foul fraud, a carnival did manage to acquire Elmer and exhibited him in town after town across my home state. He was at some point sold to another carnival, or a less-than-reputable museum, a fun house, a haunted house. He was repeatedly sold to all of the above, earning far more money as a corpse than he ever had as a bandit, and one day his true nature was somehow forgotten until a macabre accident brought it to light again._

_But Elmer was far from the only corpse exhibited for the benefit of others. Such exhibition has been a staple of human existence. For reasons alleged to be noble (while you are frenziedly searching the internet for the name of the TV show, take a moment to search the term “philatory”), horrific, amusing, educational, entertaining, inspiring, lucrative, and even artistic, the dead have been displayed to the living._

_Is it any wonder that the 'walking dead' are treated the same? It shouldn't be. The practice existed before there were any real zombies to practice on. I refer, of course, to my cinematic forebears, such as the pie-wielding bikers from “Dawn of the Dead.” When people ask in outrage how I can bring myself to 'mistreat' something that used to be a living, breathing, human being, I think of Elmer McCurdy, who finally went to his eternal and well-deserved rest 60 years ago today._

_Oh, just one more thing. Elmer was killed in 1911. He was born in 1880. His body was an object of amusement for more than 65 years. He was on display as a corpse more than twice as long as he had lived as a man. Until another 5 years or so have passed, Elmer will have been exhibited longer than he has rested in the grave._

  * **From _Anthropological Curiosity,_**

**the blog of Rob Phillips, April 22, 2037**




 

_First things first: Rob, don't read this._

_I am pissed off. Rob is being sued yet again. The hiker from yesterday has been identified. I will withhold his name out of respect for those members of his family deserving of such, and also under the advice of our lawyer. I will also withhold any information obtained by our lawyer in his preparations for court. _

_But there are some facts readily available from publicly accessible sources. The hiker was a resident of Tucson, AZ. He was to attend a conference in Houston this week. For no adequately explained reason, his spouse accompanied him, and they decided to drive in convoy with several of his conference-bound colleagues. One member of the convoy used his blog to announce his arrival in every little town along their route, until they reached El Paso. There the announcements ceased. Activity on his blog did not resume until he announced his return to Tucson the day the conference was due to start. No explanation was given._

_The hiker's spouse also infrequently kept a blog. She was one of those who mostly blogged about things that had caused her sorrow and regret. She blogged about the death of her dog, the skinned knee of her child, the loss of her favorite bracelet, and so on._

_She made no mention of the absence of her husband until after the video of his encounter with Rob appeared on a TV station in Tucson. _

  * **From _Yes Sir! F*** You Sir!,_**

**the blog of Bobbie Cardille, April 5, 2040**





	5. The Unstoppable Force and the Immovable Object

I sat and watched the clock count down past five minutes. I had been planning this for some time, since well before I knew I would have the chance to do it. Bobbie had cajoled a friend of hers into setting up a simulation and over the course of months I ran it repeatedly, adjusting the variables over a wide range. I found a deserted road that roughly approximated the terrain I now saw before me, minus the tunnel of course, and practiced until I had to replace all six of the very expensive tires on my LAV. I was confident I could perform the necessary maneuvers, and do them on the schedule I had set for myself.

The reason for going to all this trouble is that I wanted to do a live show for my fans, and not have it turn out to be a legendary failure. And this was one of the few places I could be sure of finding large numbers of infected at a predictable location, at a predictable time, and standing on a road. I've got a handful of premium subscribers who follow the live feed whenever I'm in the field, but I really wanted a larger audience to have that same experience.

The countdown approached zero, and the hit counter approached 2500. I ran through the final checks with Bobbie. Viewers could choose between six cameras or split-screen any combination of up to all of them. There would be four fixed views from the LAV, forward, rear, left, and right. Bobbie would be operating one tracking camera. And there was the one I had left with Anna. I wished I'd had a way to set one up with a view of the other end of the tunnel.

The timer hit zero and my microphone went live.

“Hello to all of my viewers, and thank you for joining me for this special live event. Today you get to watch me do something really stupid as I test whether or not the unstoppable force can penetrate the immovable object. In the tunnel ahead waits a zombie pack of undetermined size and composition. Wrapped around me is sixteen tons of steel. I really want to see what is at the other end of that tunnel. I think I'll go take a look.”

With that I started driving, smoothly accelerating to 50mph. Once I got closer to the tunnel, I turned on the front-mounted floodlights, getting my first good view of the occupants. Somewhere around twenty human infected, at least that many deer, even more coyotes and javelina, and three horses or donkeys, hard to tell at this distance. Good, too many of the larger animals would have slowed me down too much, maybe even enough that I would end up with a few passengers hanging on, which could be a problem. The push of a button started magnesium flares spewing to either side as I plowed through the infected. The LAV shuddered as it struck a horse and a donkey just before exiting the tunnel.

I wrenched the transmission into second gear, turning hard to the left. The poor state of the road surface helped for a change, aiding more than fighting my attempt to go into a fishtail. I found myself sliding sideways down the road for an instant before rotational inertia completed the 180 degree spin. It wasn't exactly a textbook bootlegger reverse, I was now moving backwards, but the LAV's powerful engine brought me to a stop and put me into forward motion again. It was uphill this time, and I had a shorter run up to the tunnel, limiting my speed. I could not accurately count the number of infected I had flung aside or run over, but the flares I had dropped along the sides of the tunnel had driven the survivors to line up in the center for my second run. Those flares also helped illuminate them better than my floodlights alone could do, especially since one of the larger deer had gone over the LAV and smashed one of them. As best as I could tell I had taken out better than half of the pack.

I re-entered the tunnel. Going slower, I could see each infected as I hit. Humans, deer, javelina, and coyotes were left littering the road behind me. One young female infected managed to cling to the front of the LAV for a few seconds before falling under the tires. I swerved to clip the last standing donkey on the way through, sending it slamming into the wall. Exiting the tunnel again, I quickly executed another bootlegger reverse. The uphill slope helped me stop sooner, and heading back downhill got me up to speed faster. My third run through the tunnel was met by just a handful of remaining infected, and I ran those few down easily before passing through into the sunlight once again. Swerving to the left one more time, I slid to a tolerable t-stop.

“Once again, I'd like to thank everyone for joining me, especially my loyal subscribers who made this possible. I hope y'all enjoyed it as much as I did. Once the video of this little experiment has been professionally honed and polished, everyone will receive a complimentary copy along with a bonus file, unavailable to anyone else, containing all of the raw video. As a more immediate bonus, anyone who cares to stay with me will be able to keep watching the camera feed until my next stop. I can't promise you'll see much except for some spectacular scenery, but you never know. Thank you again.”

After signing off, I called Anna. “Okay you can join me now, but try not to run over any flares, they'd do ugly things to your tires.”

“I already figured that out, thank you very much. And I'm already on my way. How in the hell did you manage to get blood on the tunnel ceiling?”

“When you hit something squishy with a 16-ton hammer, it's going to splash a bit,” I pointed out.

“It's dripping on my windshield. Ew.”

“Don't worry, Rob's Traveling Car Wash will soon be open for business. Just pull up along side the LAV and sit tight.”

I hit the power take off for the pressure washer, then went into the back. After putting on a disposable rain suit, face shield, and turnout boots, I grabbed the stepladder and stepped outside. I picked up the sprayer and cleaned off one side of the LAV, then got on the ladder to clear a section of the roof. Then I climbed on top and started working on the rest of the roof. It wasn't as bad as I had expected, mostly drips and splatters, just one long smear where the deer had gone over. Anna pulled up, and I cleaned off the parts of her Ford that I could see from my perch. That went quickly, and I motioned her to turn around so I could get the rest. That done, I gestured for her to pull away and went back to cleaning the LAV. The roof, back, and sides were fairly easy. When I got to the front, I remembered something Bobbie had requested. She wanted me come up with a cool nickname for the LAV. Looking down on what was plastered to the front end, I was thinking “Meatwagon” would be appropriate. Too bad Bobbie had already taken that one for her car.

I had to change heads on the pressure washer to something a little more vigorous, but I managed to get it clean. Then I climbed down to get the lower, inward slope of the armor on all sides and the tires. Finally, I put on an extension and an angled spray head to deal with the undercarriages of both vehicles. Good thing I was near the river, I'd just about emptied the bleach water tank. I had enough extra bleach along to do this twice more, but no way could I carry that much water. After putting away the sprayer and bagging and binning my outerwear, I got back into the driver's seat. Time to get this show headed on down the road.

Once we got moving, I contacted Bobbie. “So, how'd we do?”

“2743 viewers, not counting those that a certain someone let on for free. If you had found some way to stretch things out for another half an hour, we might have gotten another six hundred or so. My minions have sampled several dozen assorted internet forums and found threads talking about your little stunt. Comments are running about 82%/36% 'wish I could have seen that' and 'what an idiot'.”

“Um, Bobbie, that's more than 100%.”

“I know that. 18% of posters are saying both. Based on revenues, we can now afford that paint job you wanted and add two tiers to the wedding cake. Along with a corresponding upgrade to the wedding itself, of course.”

“Couldn't we just have the wedding sooner instead?” I asked.

“No. I need enough time to plan, send invitations, and shop for a dress. Besides, the Tower is booked up until July.”

“Sounds like the wedding is going to be lovely,” I said. “Hope I can make it.”

“Rob, you're going to be at our wedding if I have to lock your reanimated corpse in a giant hamster ball and have your best man roll you in.”

“I don't think a post-conversion marriage would be valid.”

“There are thousands of precedents for posthumous marriage in France and China, and a few in the United States. You won't get away from me that easy.”

“But why do I have to be locked up? Doesn't the condemned man at least get a hearty meal?”

“I'll put my cousin Shelly in with you at the reception. Not much heart, put plenty of meat on her bones.”

“Thanks but no thanks. I'll just have to make sure to live long enough for the wedding.”

“You do that. I'm signing off, some of us have work to do. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

As I took the turnoff towards Boquillas Canyon, my thoughts turned back to the recent carnage. My attempt at showmanship aside, the encounter was highly unusual in itself. It's almost unheard of to find that many different species of infected banding together. Zombies tend to cluster with their own kind, except for some instances of mixed packs of humans and domesticated animals. There seems to be some dim instinct that survives after conversion that results in homogenous packs. The one rare exception that I've encountered and has been reported by a few others is mixed packs of humans and coyotes. The only reasons I've been able to figure is that coyotes look enough like domestic dogs that the human infected will associate with them. And coyotes are known to hunt with another predator species, and share the kill even when the coyote could keep it all for himself. But humans don't look that much like badgers.

I slowed down abruptly, having gotten so lost in my thoughts that I'd almost missed the next turn. I took a right and drove down to the border crossing station. Or rather, what would have been a crossing station if not for the Rising. Throughout the park's history, the village of Boquillas had lived off of cross-border tourism, selling handicrafts and rocks. Since the area has some distinctive geology and it was illegal to collect rocks inside the park, that was a more lucrative business than you might think. Having the only bar within fifty miles of Rio Grande Village and the only restaurant or hotel within thirty helped as well. But increased security after September 11, 2001, put an end to legal border crossings anywhere closer than Presidio, and the population of Boquillas shrank by more than half. After more than a decade, the Departments of Interior and Homeland Security came to an agreement, and an official crossing staffed by Park Service employees was approved. By the summer of 2014, construction was nearly completed on the US side and underway on the Mexico side.

And it was the one place where the road led all the way to the river's edge. I cautiously pulled up to the edge of the ferry dock, and once it proved solid I hit the PTO for the pressure washer again and got out. I had modified it so that with the turn of a valve and the addition of a hose it can draw water from an outside source. In a pinch, I can use it to fill up the water tank, and it saves having to cram another piece of equipment into the LAV. Anna pulled up as I was dropping the end of the hose in the river, a look of comprehension appearing on her face when I popped the spray head off and stuck the nozzle in the tank. It took about ten minutes, giving me plenty of time to pour a jug of concentrated bleach into the tank as well.

With that necessary chore taken care of, I got back in the driver's seat and led Anna the last mile or so to Boquillas Canyon. The parking lot at the trail head was covered in sand and rock washed down from uphill, distinguishable only because the brush was sparser that the surrounding area. I parked at the start of the trail, with Anna pulling up beside me. I got into my usual hiking gear, adding a light riot shield that I slung over my pack. Anna met me outside, also dressed for hiking.

Glancing at my new piece of equipment she asked, “Expecting trouble?”

“Not at all, I'm expecting fun of the non-zombie variety,” I responded.

“What kind of fun?”

“You'll find out when we get there.”

The trail led up over a bluff before reaching the canyon proper. I started up, with Anna following some distance behind. I paused at the top of the hill to let the cameras get a good view of the river and the canyon mouth beyond, and the metates in the limestone slab at my feet. Metates are mortar holes worn into the rock from decades of the former native inhabitants using them to grind grains and beans. The trail continued down the hillside and skirted the edge of an alluvial flat before approaching the river. As we reached the river bank, we encountered some welcome shade provided by stands of river cane. The trail was fairly short, less than a mile, and we soon reached the end. Anna caught up to me as I was setting up a field camera near the base of a huge sand hill piled up against the canyon wall.

“Ah,” Anna said, gazing up at the steep sandy slope, “So that's what the shield is for.”

“Yep. This was a popular spot for the kids back in the day. Something about the geography of the canyon and the prevailing winds means this pile of sand is always here.”

I set down my pack and most of my weapons, then took the riot shield and started climbing up the rocks next to the sand. The climb was steep, but not dangerously so, and it took me about ten minutes to climb the hundred feet or so to the top of the sand slope. The canyon wall extended another few hundred feet above me, but there was a shallow cave at this level so I took a few minutes to check it out. Not much to see, but it was nice and cool. Stepping out onto the sand, I set the shield down and hopped on. It made a decent sled and I picked up speed quickly, whooping loudly as I slid down to the bottom. Luckily I didn't have time to pick up too much speed before I got to the bottom, and I came to a more or less graceful stop when I ran out of sand.

“Okay, my turn,” Anna said.

“Help yourself,” I replied, handing her the shield.

I got out my pocket computer and took manual control of the camera, recording Anna's progress up the hill. And ten minutes later, I was barely able to keep her in frame as she slid back down, laughing all the way. After we each took a few more trips down the hill, we packed up and hiked back to the vehicles. I took a few minutes to get into my heavier leather and chainmail gear and lay out a full weapons load. Most of the local zombie pack would have been up in the tunnel during the heat of the day, but there were probably at least a few in and around the handful of permanent structures near the campground.

“Either there's a leather bar around here somewhere, or you're definitely expecting trouble soon,” Anna commented.

“There might be some infected hanging around the campground area, so it won't hurt to be prepared.”

With that, I lead the way back in the direction we came from until we reached the road leading to the campground. Turning left, it was just a few minutes before we passed the burned out ruin of the small visitor center. A few hundred yards farther along was the store, and I parked at the front. After hitting the switch to raise the camera mast, I grabbed the rest of my gear and got out of the LAV. I scanned the surroundings as I settled my weapons into place. The store showed signs of being hastily fortified at some point, probably during the Rising. As far as I knew, no one living had been down here since then. And that means that no help came for the people who had holed up here. Maybe they had gotten away, but I doubted it. Most likely they had tried to hold out waiting for rescue, but instead perished when the improvised barricades finally gave way. It was a story repeated time and again that summer.

My thoughts were interrupted by a noise from inside the store. I'd actually had my fill of zombies for the day, and briefly held out hope that the sound came from a living animal. But as Anna got out of her truck to stand beside me, I heard the moaning start. Activating and tossing a pair of field cameras, I told Anna, “No messing around this time, we'll take them as soon as they show themselves.”

Anna nodded, “Got it.”

The windows were still boarded up more or less securely, the only visible access to the interior was through the shattered remains of the front door. I'd already drawn my right side handgun, and when the first zombie poked its head out into the daylight I put a bullet through it. I also got the second one, while Anna took care of the third. With three bodies piled up in the doorway, slowing down the rest of the pack, our task became easier. Five more de-animated corpses had joined the stack when Bobbie yelled through my helmet receiver “Check your 4 o'clock!”

I swiveled to my right, drawing my other handgun as I saw a group of horses and donkeys charging our way, apparently from a grove of what passes for trees around here. Why was it that whenever I encountered a mixed human and animal pack, the animals always ambushed me from the rear? They weren't nearly as fast as when they were alive, but their four-legged gait was still faster than a human infected, and the odd shambling gallop of the horses in particular covered the ground with distressing speed. With their smaller brains and sloped skulls, it was hard to get a kill shot, and I emptied one gun taking out the first two horses. Switching to my other pistol, I needed four shots to bring down the third horse. I'd put three rounds into the skull of the last horse when it slammed into me. I was knocked back into Anna, sending both of us spilling to the ground.

Luckily, that last shot had finished off the horse and it was just momentum that had sent it crashing into me. Luckier still, it hadn't bled on me as near as I could tell. Best of all, the donkeys were lagging behind and I had time to get back to my feet and reload. Behind me, I heard Anna reload and then go to full auto. I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder, I needed to trust her to handle herself until I'd finished off the critters coming from this side.

I had just put down the last donkey when I was grabbed from behind. I felt something trying to bite through the left shoulder of my jacket, and I struggled to get free. There was a hard impact against my back, my jacket came free from the teeth, and something wet splattered across the back of my neck. The grip on my upper arms slackened and I wrenched myself loose, turning around to see Anna standing there holding a zombie by the hair. She had a punch dagger buried in the back of its neck, and her SMG lay on the ground with its bolt locked back and the folding stock shattered. She had blood and other fluids flowing over her hand and splashed across the front of her body. No doubt my back was similarly decorated. I scanned the area, but it looked like all of the infected were accounted for.

“Go!” Bobbie said in my ear, “I've got four other people on the cameras, we'll warn you of any more problems.”

“Okay,” I said, then turned to Anna. She pulled the knife loose and let the body fall to ground.

“Drop the knife, don't touch the blade, and stand over there,” I pointed.

I ran to the LAV and leaned into the driver's compartment to hit the PTO, then hurried to the pressure washer. I put a multi-stream medium pressure head on the nozzle, hooked it into the clamps installed for just this purpose, and turned it on. I had pointed Anna to just the right spot and the bleach water spray had already soaked her thoroughly. After grabbing a couple of pairs of disposable flip flops and a bag of testing units from an outside locker I joined her, turning in the water stream to get full coverage.

“Rinse yourself completely,” I instructed Anna, “Then strip off your outer layer of clothing. Rinse again, then take off the next layer. Repeat until you run out of clothes. When you're ready to take your boots and socks off, put these on.”

As I began the process myself, I noted that Anna's belt was already undone. Apparently the dagger had been disguised as her belt buckle. After a few minutes we were stripping off our underwear, and I was glad that I'd taken the time to refill the tank earlier today or we would have run out of water. When our bare skin was thoroughly rinsed, I shut off the water and we checked each other for cuts, bites, and abrasions. Under other circumstances I would have been having a great time, and part of an old country song about checking for ticks drifted through my mind before I willed myself to be as serious as the situation required. I handed her a test unit, taking one for myself, and we broke the seals and pressed our thumbs to the pads.

After what seemed like a lifetime, both tests came up green. I hit the switch to lower the rear ramp on the LAV, and once it was open enough I reached in to grab one of my spare blankets to pass to Anna. Wrapping a second blanket around myself, I led Anna inside and closed the door behind us.

She sat down, shaking, on my cot. “I'm so sorry! A large group came around the side of the building and I couldn't put them down fast enough.”

“Not your fault,” I said, sitting beside her, “If I hadn't bumped into you I bet you would have handled them just fine. I shouldn't have let you get involved.”

“Wait a minute!” she said sharply. “You didn't 'let' me do anything. I chose to get involved and you couldn't have stopped me.”

That worked better than I had expected, now she wasn't blaming herself anymore. “You're right. Besides, we're both okay, no need to assign blame.”

She laughed and changed the subject. “I suppose the video of my impromptu striptease will bump up your site traffic.”

“Nah, Bobbie won't post that, and she would have cut the live feed to the premium members area before you got naked.”

“You know what? I've realized that I don't really care about the cameras anymore.”

Anna sat up straighter, releasing her hold on the blanket and letting it fall to her waist. Now that I wasn't distracted by fear of one of us converting, I could confirm my earlier estimation. They were indeed magnificent. She turned towards me and threw her arms around my neck. My own blanket fell away as my hands reached for her, one going to the back of her neck to pull her into a hard deep kiss, the other slipping around her waist. I fell backwards onto the cot, pulling her down on top of me. She squirmed and kicked to get the blankets out of the way, unwilling to let go of me long enough to use her hands for the task. There was no foreplay, just a burning need to reaffirm the fact that we had survived. She slid down to engulf me, and moaned into my mouth as her pubic hair mingled with mine. We held each other so tightly it was as though we were trying to crawl inside each other's skins. Only her hips moved away from me, and only far enough that just the head of my cock was still inside her, then slammed back down to take my full length again. She came after just a few strokes, and I had to bite my lip to hold back my own orgasm when her muscles clamped down.

She started sliding up and down my body, her dripping juices leaving a wet trail across my stomach, her nipples so hard that I half expected them to leave grooves in my chest. Part of my brain insisted that this was a mistake, but the rest of me yelled 'Shut Up!' My hands slid across her skin and found her breasts, something they had been itching to do for two days. Whoever said that more than a handful is a waste had never gotten his hands on these. I pinched down gently on her nipples, and Anna responded by throwing back her head and moving faster. I spread my hands as though trying to encompass as much of her breasts as possible, then closed my fingers, catching her nipples between the joints on the middle and ring fingers of each hand. I squeezed hard, and this time when she clamped down on my cock there was no stopping from joining her in orgasm.

 

_My apologies to our premium subscribers, but anyone wishing to lodge a complaint should first look at the Terms of Service. We do not have a signed model release from Ms. Guillen on file, and therefore have a responsibility to respect her privacy and modesty. We are not going to take advantage of dangerous situation just to titillate the public at her expense. Of course, should she choose at some point to voluntarily expose herself, I won't argue._

  * **From _Yes Sir! F*** You Sir!,_**

**the blog of Bobbie Cardille, April 5, 2040**





	6. Bird Bombs, Back Roads, and Bats

Once the barrier had been broken, we didn't stop there. The next several hours were slow and sensual, especially in comparison to the first few minutes. Night had fallen by the time we drifted off to sleep in an exhausted tangle of limbs and bedding on the narrow cot.

The rising sun peeked in through the rear armor-glass window and struck me right in the face. Then as I tried to free myself from my cot, not yet remembering why I was entangled, the floor rose up and struck me on the ass. Someone let out a high pitched giggle at my predicament, and when I threw a handy pillow at the offender she just laughed louder.

“As clumsy as you are, I don't know how you've managed to keep from getting eaten this long,” Anna grinned down at me, sitting up and once again letting the blanket fall to her waist.

The view left me unable to conjure up a clever retort, forcing me to settle for a lame “You weren't calling me clumsy last night.”

She blushed at that, turning red all the way down to her navel. “Yeah, well, I don't think that technique would work on zombies as well as it did on me.” She paused for a moment. “Ew. Now I can't get that image out of my head.”

“Ugh. There are some things even I won't do for ratings.”

On that sour note, we got dressed and opened some plastic pouches containing something that vaguely resembled breakfast. Bobbie keeps a change of clothes in the LAV, and those worked for Anna once she rolled up the cuffs. She was going to have to go bra-less until she could retrieve her own clothing, not that I minded that a bit. Once she was dressed I sent Bobbie a message to start up the camera feed.

A look outside showed the vultures had already gathered around the buffet we'd left for them. I popped open the gun locker, taking out a pump shotgun and a box of bird bombs. I needed to drive the vultures away, and bird bomb rounds were designed for scaring away nuisance birds like pigeons, crows, and grackles. These days, any carrion eater is not just a nuisance but an active danger. When they took off they were likely to scatter virus-laden drops of blood and bits of flesh, better that happen while we were still inside.

I peered outside as I loaded rounds into the shotgun. The rounds would travel fifty yards or so before they went off, and the vultures were closer than that. I wanted to scare them away from the vehicles, so I went to the opposite side of the LAV and stuck the shotgun out through the gunport. Shortly after I fired, the bird bomb went off with a loud report and a flash of light. Looking back towards the vultures, I saw them clumsily hopping away before lumbering into flight.

I loaned Anna one of my backup pistols and gave her a pair of gloves before we went out. I fired another round to keep the vultures away, and we collected our gear. The weapons went into the sterilizer, and our clothing was put into leak proof bags until it could be properly washed. Then we took a look around the area, and I had to fire off a few more bird bombs to keep the vultures at bay. The back door of the store was also open, that explained where that last group had come from. When the bodies piling up in the front door had gotten to be too much of a barrier, they'd been bright enough to find a route other than straight towards us. I took a quick look around inside, not intending to take anything. But on the desk in the store's tiny office there was diary, which I carefully sealed in a biohazard bag for decontamination when I got back home.

That last zombie was fresher than the rest, as best as I could tell he had been alive no more than a couple of days earlier. I hoped this wasn't another missing tourist. Finally, I noticed that the bodies had some damage that hadn't been caused by us and couldn't have come from the vultures. I pointed an example out to Anna.

“See that?” I asked.

“Yes,” she responded. “What could do that?”

“Javelina. Those gouges are from tusks, and they're too close together for wild hogs. And since live javelina mostly eat plants and the occasional small animal....”

“Then they're infected,” Anna concluded. “But where are they?”

“Probably gorged themselves and went looking for shade or water. But we need to move along.”

We mounted up and I led the way to the campground proper, looking for a place to hole up for an hour or so. As soon as I was alone, Bobbie's voice came over the speaker.

“You owe me a massage, loverboy,” she said, and I could hear the self-satisfied smirk in her voice.

“Oh yeah, that's one bet I _really_ hated to lose.”

“I could tell. You clearly weren't enjoying yourself at all last night.”

“And I'm sure you were disgusted watching every minute of it,” I riposted.

Bobbie laughed at that. “Okay, sarcasm mode off. Our numbers had slipped a bit, no surprise there, but as usual you nearly getting killed gave us a bump up. Some of the brighter forumites have already figured out that you spent the night with Anna. I've had to call in some extra volunteer mods to help squelch the hate from your fangirls. At the rate things are going, Anna may beat my one-day record for death threats. Meanwhile, pretty much anyone who doesn't want your body wants hers instead, so we're having to stomp on a lot of lewd remarks. And you, sir, haven't gotten this many 'attaboys' since our last trip to Hippie Hollow.”

I chuckled. Hippie Hollow, on the shore of Lake Travis near Austin, was the only clothing-optional public park in Texas. It was established well before the Rising, and the small but dedicated group of nudists that regularly frequented the park have worked tirelessly to keep it open and safe since then. One notable change in the rules these days is that clothing is no longer an option, so if you aren't prepared to bare all you will be politely but firmly requested to leave. Bobbie and I had done a story about the place earlier this spring and interviewed some of the folks that had spearheaded the effort to keep it running. Naturally, we had to adopt the local costume, and Bobbie's appearance earned me congratulations from most of the men and some of the women in our audience. That wasn't a problem, we'd been going there five or six times a year since we started dating, which was why they were more willing to talk to us than to other reporters. But it was the first time we'd brought cameras. The admiration went up to 11 with the closing group shot of Bobbie and I each surrounded by all the members of the opposite gender who wanted to be on camera. And nudists aren't exactly known for being shy.

“Bobbie, time for me to sign off. I've got some boring domestic chores to do.”

“Have fun!”

“Yeah, right.”

We'd reached the campground by then, and I was scanning for the right site. Campsites here were more isolated from each other than the ones in the Basin, so it was mostly a matter of finding one that was still accessible. I finally spotted one where the drive was passable and there was enough open space to work with. It was surrounded by a thicket of mesquite and cactus so dense that any animal large enough to amplify would probably find it impossible to get through, and would make lots of noise trying. I motioned for Anna to drive in first, and then I backed in so that the bulk of the LAV blocked the only opening. Anna spent a few minutes taking advantage of the relative privacy of her SUV and emerged once again dressed in her own clothing, minus her Kevlar, gun belt, and weapons. We needed a couple of hours to clean and recondition our armor and guns. The other clothes would have to wait, I didn't have room for laundry facilities in the LAV. The site's picnic table was rotted away so we spread out a tarp and sat on the ground. We talked as we worked.

“So, what's on the agenda for today?” Anna asked as she struggled to get the broken folding stock off of her SMG..

“Back through the tunnel,” I responded, “Which hopefully hasn't repopulated yet. Then we'll go just past the Hot Springs and pick up River Road East, such as it is. Sometime in the afternoon we'll be on River Road West and follow it until we get back to what's left of the paved road near Castolon. I plan to stop for the night there.”

“Anything to see out there?”

“I'm going to detour up to Glenn Spring, that's on the Park Service wish list. Your Ford won't be able to handle Black Gap Road, so you should stay on River Road and meet me at the Mariscal Mine.” I applied a thin film of gun oil to the working parts of my handguns and re-assembled them.

“Any packs of infected to watch out for?” Anna asked, finally loosening the stuck screw. “Damn, but that zombie had a hard head.”

“Just the usual desert animals,” I replied, twisting a barrel bushing into place. “There's not likely to be any human infected out there, though it's always possible.”

“Not even at Castolon?” she asked, setting aside her SMG and starting to go over her Kevlar jacket with a disinfectant cloth.

“Nope,” I replied, getting out the saddle soap to start working on my leather. “It pretty well shut down during the summers, so there were few people there during the Rising. The Army put down the handful of zombies that were there. Across the river, the people in Santa Elena managed to take care of themselves until the Mexican government made them evacuate.”

“Good. I could use a quiet day. It may be old hat to you, but I normally go weeks without seeing even one zombie, and yesterday we had three different packs of them.”

“Welcome to my world,” I grinned. “Although three packs a day is unusual even for me.”

“Big Tobacco will be so disappointed to hear you say that,” Anna said.

I had to laugh at that.

Anna hesitantly said, “I just have to ask, what was that one thing you did last night?”

“What thing?”

“Well, you know, when....” she trailed off, blushing.

“Oh, that was the dreaded Vulcan Nipple Pinch.”

“What?”

“Have you ever watched Star Trek?”

“Sure.”

“Then you should be familiar with the Vulcan salute, right?”

“Okay, yeah.”

“So, you make the Vulcan salute, grab the breast with the nipple in the gap between the fingers, then pinch the nipple between the finger joints.”

“That sounds way too geeky, but, um, it was _very_ effective.”

“Yeah, I kinda noticed that.”

We continued working in silence for the next half an hour or so. I glued a patch on the back of my jacket where the zombie had chewed through the leather but hadn't penetrated the Kevlar lining. It would hold until I could get home and do a more permanent repair. Anna borrowed my saddle soap to work on her gun belt, then put it on with a sigh of relief, the punch dagger returning to its place disguised as her belt buckle. With her jacket off, I got a better look at the rest of her gear. Wide leather belt, holstered Glock handgun, three extra mags, handcuffs, and pepper spray. Other than the concealed blade, standard kit for all uniformed federal law enforcement officers, including those that work for the Park Service. Having less equipment, Anna finished well before I did. She kept an eye on our surroundings as I worked, then started packing things up as I thumbed rounds into my empty handgun magazines. Anna was spared that chore. She hadn't needed her pistol yet, and the magazines for her UMP25 were factory loaded and disposable.

A few minutes more to wrap up, a short detour to the river to top off the water tank, and it was time to get back on what was left of the road. A few minutes of driving brought us back to the tunnel. It was still a mess, but at least the ceiling was no longer dripping. No new zombies had moved in yet, so the passage was uneventful. A few miles later we passed the turn off for Hot Springs, and while I would have loved to visit there again, we were burning daylight. Then it was time to retrace our path across Tornillo Creek before finally reaching River Road East and heading out into fresh territory.

Roads in this part of the park originally served the small mining and agricultural communities in the area. Unlike, for example, the road to Dagger Flat, these routes were established by people who never expected them to be maintained by heavy equipment. As such they tended to follow the natural contours of the land as much as possible, and with a few exceptions should still be passable for Anna's truck. Not that the going was easy, even after my LAV broke trail for her. Still, if she had to she could manage on her own, and she was going to have to in half an hour or so. About ten miles of relatively easy back country driving, we got to the turnoff up to Glenn Spring. I opened an encrypted channel to Anna.

“Okay, this is where we part ways for a while. I don't suppose your bosses provided your GPS with data for the back roads here?”

“Nope, they figured I would just follow you.” Anna replied.

“That's not going to work,” I explained. “Part of this route was pretty rough even 30 years ago. I'm not entirely sure that I'll be able to make it. So, let me send you the route you need to follow.”

I called up the list of active wireless devices in the area, a shorter list than most people will ever see in their lives. I selected Anna's GPS and started sending the data. She quickly accepted the download, and it was completed in a few seconds.

“I'll meet you at the Mariscal Mine in a couple of hours. And I'll keep this channel open in case you run into trouble.” With that, I headed northwest while Anna drove southwest.

The first leg of my solo trip was fairly easy, paralleling the dry washes draining the landscape, then running alongside a series of low ridges. In about half an hour I arrived at what used to be Glenn Spring. I picked a spot with a good view to park the LAV, raised the camera mast, geared up, and got out. I was kind of annoyed that the Park Service didn't want me to narrate the video I was providing them, because I had done quite a bit of research on Big Bend over the years.

Glenn Spring was the only reliable source of water for about seven miles in any direction. Not only was it handy for livestock, it made wax production possible. The desert was home to the candelilla plant, which secretes a natural wax. Recovering the wax requires boiling it in a solution of acid and water and then skimming the wax off the top. In the first half of the 20th century, candelilla wax was a lucrative product, especially in wartime when it was used for waterproofing military gear. Even after Big Bend became a National Park, the wax was valuable enough that folks would sneak across the river into the park to harvest candelilla, take it back into Mexico to process it, then smuggle the finished product back into the US for sale.

It was also valuable enough to attract bandits. In 1916, Mexican bandits raiding across the border were a frequent problem. Requests for more US troops along the border were denied, so the troops that were already in the area did what they could. There were nine troopers from the 14th Cavalry stationed at Glenn Spring. In May of 1916, the force of bandits that raided the camp had them outnumbered at least 10 to 1. The soldiers abandoned their tents and took refuge in an adobe building from which they were able to hold off the raiders for several hours. But then the bandits set fire to the building's roof and the soldiers were forced to retreat. Three of them were killed and others were wounded or badly burned. The bandits looted the general store, burned the wax works, and killed four civilians before returning to Mexico. The Glenn Spring raid goaded the US government into stationing over 100,000 troops along the border. The community rebuilt and struggled along for another three years before the post-war drop in wax prices spelled the end.

I wandered the area pretty much at random, lost in thought. There wasn't much to see here other than the spring itself. Early in the park's history many of the older structures were destroyed in a misguided attempt to 'restore the natural beauty' and a wealth of history was lost. Surprisingly, there were no infected animals near the spring or sheltering under the small grove of cottonwood trees that surrounded it. A closer look at the spring revealed why. There were burro and boot prints in the damp soil. Somebody had been here recently and must have cleaned out the local zombies. I wondered if it was some of Anna's smugglers.

I sent a text to Bobbie: _Send this part of the video to Anna when you get a chance, otherwise keep it under wraps._

_Will do,_ I got back.

I took another loop around the area, farther from the spring, and now that I was looking for it I could see where candelilla plants had been pulled up. Looks like the wax smuggling industry was still alive. I headed back to the LAV and had a quick lunch before starting down Black Gap Road. This was the reason Anna had to take an alternative route. Parts of this road were known to be challenging even to hard core four-wheeling enthusiasts when the park was still open. The Park Service stopped maintaining it and discouraged people from driving it. The few blogs that remain from that time agree that its easier to take the road from south to north. Naturally, I was going north to south.

The first half mile wasn't so bad, but after that I found myself driving along the top of a ridge and then down the side. A large dry creek bed, not as large as Tornillo Creek but big enough, wound snakelike between and around the hills. The road was more or less straight here and therefore crossed it several times. More than once I had to stop and get out to pick my path. Then after about four miles of this, I came to the Black Gap itself. It was a narrow cut through a high sharp ridge, and was named for the black volcanic rock. The ridge was actually what is known as a dike, a volcanic intrusion through a crack in the earth. The softer dirt and rock erodes away, leaving just the dark igneous wall protruding.

I stopped for a moment, then entered the gap. Those old blogs were right, coming the other way would have been easier. Good thing I wasn't limited to four wheels or I never would have made it without moving some rocks around to build ramps. There were spots where I had to climb rock steps more than two feet high. It was a difficult passage, and it took me about half an hour to cover a few hundred feet. After that the road got a little easier, still challenging but not nerve-wracking. It took another twenty minutes to get down to Talley Road and backtrack east a bit to the Mariscal Mine. I pulled into the rough circle of packed gravel that had once served as a parking lot and found Anna waiting in her truck. She'd probably been there about an hour, having taken a shorter and easier route. After I had gotten my gear on and grabbed a duffel bag that I'd need later, she met me between our vehicles.

“Wow! I thought this road was pretty bad until I got here and Bobbie started sending me the live feed from your little detour.”

I chuckled. “Can you believe people used to drive that for fun?”

“Yes I can,” she smiled. “And I bet you had fun.”

I thought about that for a moment. “I guess you're right.”

“So, what's the plan here?” Anna asked.

“This is one of the most extensive historical sites in the park, a mercury mine that operated for over forty years. I'm going to need to get some good video, so I'd appreciate it if you would hang back until we turn around. It also has the most buildings we've seen since the Basin, so keep an eye out.”

With that, I led the way about a quarter mile back the way we drove in, to some buildings that were near the turnoff from the main road. These were mostly worker housing and a store from the World War II period, though there was a warehouse and the mine superintendent's residence from around 1920. I made sure to get some solid footage, though the structures were showing the effects of decades of neglect. I retraced my steps, examining each of the older worker homes clustered around the parking lot. Near by was the remains of an old Chevy that had to have been there for nearly a century. It had been stripped to just the body, frame, and engine block, but those had stood up remarkably well. The trail led from the parking area past a pile of tailings that I had learned actually covered some of the earliest structures at the site. Above the tailing pile was the massive brick furnace where the ore was heated and higher still was the series of the condensers that cooled the mercury vapor back to liquid for collection. Behind the main condensers was the secondary condensers, ore bin, and the rail bed for the tracks that carried ore carts from the mine to the furnace. Farther back were the old blacksmith shop and the foundations for the somewhat higher-tech machinery used in the final years of the mine's operation.

Finally I reached the mine entrance got some good video of the steel grating sealing off the entrance. Some firm prodding demonstrated that it was still solid. I motioned for Anna to come ahead and join me. “I got footage of everything the Park Service wanted, but I've got one more chore to take care of before leaving.”

“And what would that be?” Anna sat down on a rock and looked at me quizzically.

I set down the duffel and pulled a small weatherproof camera from it. “I need to place some wildlife cameras at all the mine shafts we can find. When the mine stopped operating, several species of bats moved in. The Park Service sealed off the mine to keep tourists from killing themselves, but they used grates with large enough gaps for the bats. Since I was stopping by here anyway, Bat Conservation International asked me to set up some cameras to monitor the bat population.”

She perked up at that. “Great! I've been a member of BCI since I was a little girl. I'd love to help.”

I blinked at that.

Anna grinned back at me. “Grew up in New Mexico, remember? We'd visit Carlsbad at least once a year, and always stuck around 'til sunset to watch the bats come out. Built my first bat house when I was 11.” She paused for a moment, looking at the mine entrance. “What kind of bats live in there? Mexican free-tailed?”

I shrugged. “That's what BCI wants to find out. Last time anyone looked, there were four species living in the mine. Sorry, don't remember the names, but I think that was one of them.”

“No problem, I can look it up.”

I briefed Anna on the procedure and we moved out, finding mine entrances and ventilation shafts, hammering in stakes at the specified distance and direction, then attaching the cameras and solar charging panels. Solar was sufficient for this purpose, the panels could charge the batteries all day and the cameras only needed to operate for an hour or so around sunset and sunrise. Once we'd found all the known holes and set up cameras to cover them, I set up the monitoring station and its larger solar array. I made sure it was picking up the wireless signals from all the cameras, and had to send Anna to reboot a couple that weren't on the network. Finally I had it send a test message to BCI's headquarters in Austin and got a reply back.

“Whew!” I wiped my forehead. “We're going to have to hustle to get to Castolon before nightfall.”

Anna looked at me with a credible impersonation of puppy dog eyes. “Is there any way we could stay here and watch the bats tonight? Besides, it would be easier to carry out my other duties if we aren't having to rush across the landscape.” She thought for a moment. “Never mind, you go on ahead. I'll stay here overnight and catch up tomorrow.”

I smiled at her. “Tell you what. I've got some leeway in my schedule I haven't used up yet, and without your help by the time I'd gotten all these cameras set up I'd have had to stay here overnight anyway. How about we take a nap now to make sure we'll be rested enough to leave at first light in the morning?”

“It's a deal.”

With that we packed up our gear and returned to the parking lot. Anna started towards her Ford until I pointed out that it was going to be dangerously hot inside in the desert sun. We both went to the LAV, which had enough battery reserve to keep the AC going until dark. Not that we went to sleep right away, Anna insisted on expressing her gratitude with much vigor and enthusiasm.

When we were inside the LAV, Anna pushed me down into a sitting position on the cot. She slipped off her boots and socks, then tossed her jacket into the corner. Her blouse followed, revealing a tight white tank top. She hadn't bothered putting on a bra, and her nipples stood out clearly under the thin fabric. She dropped her pants to the floor and stepped out of them, revealing lacy pink panties this time. She gracefully turned around and bent over, causing the fabric to stretch even more tightly across her ass. Anna hooked her thumbs into the waistband, slowly inching the pink lace down. She bent over further, rolling her panties down to her knees before they fell to the floor. I could see her lips glistening with moisture through the gap between her thighs. She turned back to face me, standing upright, and quickly pulled off her tank top.

Finally seeing her nude form in good light and with the leisure to properly appreciate it, I was entranced. No one had affected me that strongly since I had first met Bobbie. I had encountered lots of very attractive women, but the competence and intelligence inside that lovely package made her all the more beautiful. She stood there for about a minute, letting me take in the view, then straddled my legs as she knelt on the cot.

My hands went around her waist and then slid down to cup her ass, purely to keep her from sliding to the floor of course. Anna put her arms around my neck, pulling my face to her breasts. My lips found her left nipple and I sucked it into my mouth, biting down on it gently at first, then with increasing pressure. She gasped and ground her pussy against the bulge in my pants. After a few minutes, she pulled back to start unbuttoning my shirt and kissing her way down my chest. My hands reluctantly released her ass as she slid to the floor, but quickly found solace on her breasts. She was soon on her knees in front of me, and she unbuckled my belt with her teeth. Then her hands went to work on my button and zipper, and to my immense relief she freed my aching cock from its cloth and leather prison.

She teased the tip with her tongue, then wrapped her lips around the head. She gently sucked my cock into her mouth, slipping a hand into my fly to caress my balls. She took me in deeper, her throat muscles working as she struggled to swallow my full length. She held me there until she had to back off to take a breath. The next passage was easier, and she was soon voraciously deep-throating me at a rapid pace. Her hair fell in front of her face, and I brushed it back so I could see clearly. She backed off and took a deep breath, then swallowed me all the way one last time. Her throat muscles, lips, and tongue caressed my cock until I came hard. She kept up an intense suction until I started to soften, then raised her head, gasping and choking a bit. She smiled up at me, then helped me finish getting undressed.

We found time for a few hours of sleep, and my alarm woke us with enough time to eat and pick out a good bat watching spot before sunset. Not being entirely sure where the bats would emerge, we settled on a hilltop with a good view of the main entrance and several of the ventilation shafts. I set up a couple of field cameras and we settled down to wait.

The sun had just dropped behind the hills when the first bats appeared. Within a few minutes, there were swirling columns of bats rising into the sky from at least half a dozen points, including a shaft barely twenty feet from us. I used one of the field cameras to get a closeup of the bats rising out of ground and silhouetted against the darkening sky. Anna leaned against my shoulder, watching raptly. We sat like that for a few minutes, until I noticed some movement on the ground. I nudged Anna and pointed.

A herd of javelina was approaching the nearby shaft from the opposite side from us. They walked directly onto the grate covering the pit and went up to the small structure in the center that allowed the bats access. This was not normal javelina behavior, and my suspicions were confirmed when they started snapping at the bats as they flew by. Most of the time they missed, but on the rare occasions they did manage to bite down on a bat they quickly swallowed it down. They hadn't seen us, javelina have notoriously bad eyesight and I was sure that the eyes of zombie javelina were even worse. It was entirely possible that they would eat their fill and leave without noticing us at all.

But then Anna drew her sidearm and started shooting. I sighed, then got up and unholstered both of my .45s, aiming and firing at the javelina while I stepped to the side. Anna was a decent pistol shot, taking down three of the 'musk pigs' before I joined the fray. Between us we got a dozen more before they even figured out where we were. They must have been confused by the gunshots echoing off of the hills around us. Most of them charged me, either they saw my movement or they heard the rocks crunching under my feet. Or it could be that I was a little more fragrant due to wearing leather in the desert heat. They'd been dead quite a while and were probably dehydrated, so they weren't moving very fast, and the sky was still light enough to see them clearly enough to aim. Only the last one got close enough to try for my legs, and a quick step to the side and steel-toed boot applied firmly to his ribs sent him skidding away from me. Anna finished him off, having already taken care of the few that had come her way.

Keeping a careful watch in the fading light, we picked up our gear and headed back to the vehicles. With no discussion at all this time, Anna joined me in the LAV rather than returning to her truck.

* * *

_**July 27, 2014** _

_**Rio Grande Village Store** _

_The power went out this morning. I'm surprised it lasted this long. Its been 3 days since the Park Service called and said they was coming to get us. I guess that aint really gonna happen. Lucky the water still works, and we got a Coleman stove thats been gathering dust on the shelf as long as I worked here and plenty of fuel for it. We prolly got a couple of weeks worth of food for the 3 of us. This sucks. Our car is right outside but Johnnie got the keys in his pocket and he'll eat us if we try to go outside and get them from him. I useta think that carpooling would help save the Earth. Maybe so, but looks like its gonna kill me._

  * _**From the diary of Kathy Smith**_





	7. B-Plot, Beavers, and Boy Scouts

At least this morning I wasn't surprised to wake up and find someone sharing my bed. Anna was still asleep, and a glance at the clock showed that we had another couple of hours before dawn. With a sly grin I eased my way down to the foot of the cot, slowly nudged her knees apart and proceeded to gently wake her in the nicest way I could think of. I pressed my face between her thighs, the neatly trimmed patch of pubic hair tickling my nose as my tongue sought out her clit. She stirred when I first made contact with it, but didn't waken. I gently teased the little bundle of nerve endings, trying to arouse her as much as possible while she still slept. After a few minutes I heard her moan, then she draped her legs over my shoulders and dug her heels into my back. I licked faster and slid a couple of fingers inside her. She grabbed me by the hair and pulled my face tight against her mound. I sucked her clit into my mouth and lightly scraped my teeth across it. Soon she let out a gasp and her thighs clamped down on my head while her pussy squeezed my fingers so hard it hurt. Then her orgasm was finished and she was frantically pushing me away.

“Stop. Stop! That feels great but if I don't go to the bathroom _right now_ things are going to get messy.”

I sat up and politely looked the other way as she scurried to the toilet. From the amount of time it took, she clearly had not been exaggerating how close to the edge of disaster she had been. A few moments later she stood in front of me. She had obviously figured out my biggest weakness (or rather, weakness _es_ ) and had deliberately remained standing while I sat on the cot in order to place her breasts at my eye level. I could not resist burying my face in her cleavage, luxuriating in the feel of her soft, warm flesh. She chuckled, holding my head for a few moments before bending down and kissing me. She growled low in her throat as she licked her juices from my chin. Her hand found my cock, stroking it as she knelt on the floor.

This time she devoted the attention of her lips and tongue to the head, pumping the shaft with her hand. I could feel her drooling heavily, her hand sliding faster as her saliva covered my flesh. She raised her head, mashing her breasts tightly around my cock. Lubricated with her spit, I slid easily through her cleavage as she lifted and lowered her breasts. As I leaned back to get a better view, I noticed the red light on one of the internal cameras was on. Knowing Bobbie was watching turned me on even more. I sincerely hoped she was starting to like Anna, because I suspected this could turn out to be more than just a fling. The woman before me was making a place for herself in my heart with her personality, brains, and sensuality. I needed to find out if she felt the same way about me, and if she was open to a poly relationship. The thought of the three of us in bed together was the last straw, and I exploded. She fastened her lips around the head of my cock just in time. When I was done she leaned back and licked her lips, smiling up at me.

I helped her up to sit beside me and we collapsed back onto the cot for a while before I got up to make breakfast. I decided to go ahead and use up what was left of the fresh food, and was reminded why 'hot oil' and 'naked' do not go well together. Fortunately it was just a small burn and wasn't in too sensitive a spot. Even after eating at leisurely pace, we were cleaned up, dressed, and ready to go by the first hint of dawn. Anna returned to her truck and we set out. She wanted to take the lead, but I pointed out that she'd be better able to watch for signs of traffic if she wasn't busy trying to follow what was left of the road and breaking trail.

Once we were moving, I put in a call to Bobbie. “What's the good news?”

“The good news is that our site traffic is still running higher than average, we're having to do less troll-stomping in the forums, and BCI is pleased with the camera set up. The bad news is that Anna and her knife have become a meme.”

“What?!”

“Yeah. We posted some really good video of her pithing that last zombie the other day, and animated gifs are popping up everywhere. They've got her carving a Thanksgiving turkey, cutting a cake, assassinating Adolf Hitler, performing an impromptu 'sex change' operation on Governor Tate, and um, deflating Congresswoman Wagman's most prominent assets. My favorite is the one where she takes out Godzilla.”

“Oh my. I'll have to think of the most opportune moment to share this with her.”

Bobbie laughed, “Make sure you get it on camera.”

“I'll try. So, which of those did you post?”

“Please, those are way too amateur to be my work. I have something extra special in the works.”

“Then I'll let you get back to it. Miss you.”

“Miss you too.”

The road was a good eight miles from the river at this point, with the bulk of Mariscal Mountain in between. The road wound more or less southwest while the river curved gradually north, so we'd hit the riverbank after about twelve miles or so. While I was talking to Bobbie we had passed the Black Gap road, and came to the next major fork on our route.

I stopped and opened an encrypted channel to Anna. “The road to the left goes about six miles and dead ends at a campsite on the river. I forgot to ask if you wanted to check the side roads or just watch to see if there were tracks onto or crossing River Road.”

“I'd say stick to River Road. If any of the side roads look passable, I'll run down them a short ways and then catch up with you. This one looks pretty bad, though.”

“Gotcha,” I said, and started moving again.

Anna skipped the next two turnoffs as well, but decided to check out the road to Loop Camp. A few minutes after she left, I finally caught sight of the river again. At this point the Rio Grande makes a loop northward of over a mile before returning to its more regular course. Hence, the reason the nearest campground was called Loop Camp. I stopped and popped my head out of the driver's hatch to take...Holy Shit!

There was a longhorn bull about fifty yards off the side of the road. I stood up on my seat to get a better look. It would have been a prizewinner if it was alive and healthy, but it was pathetically trying to use its blunt herbivore teeth to strip the meat from a baby deer. That argued conclusively that it was dead. Too bad, if that spread of horns wasn't a record, it was pretty close. On the other hand, being a zombie meant it was fair game. I ducked into the back and opened the gun locker.

“Rob, you are NOT going out there to tangle with that thing!” Bobbie's voice came from the speakers.

“Do I look that crazy?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I'm not,” I said, grabbing my Marlin 1895 and opening the top hatch. I stepped up onto my cot, which put me at the right height outside the hatch to rest my elbows on the roof for a stable shooting platform. I looked over at the bull and realized he had spotted me and was shambling my way. I worked the lever to load a round of .45-70 into the chamber. I sighted through the scope, laid the cross-hairs on the center of the bull's forehead, and gently squeezed the trigger. The recoil was a surprise, just as it always is when the shot is just right. The back of the bull's skull blew out in a mist of blood and gray matter and he dropped to the ground. In the silence following the shot, I heard a high-pitched engine sound to the south. Scanning the sky in that direction, I saw it.

“Bobbie! Aircraft, about 60 degrees left, 10 degrees up. See if you can get a clear view and identify it.” I heard the tracking camera swivel above my head.

“Searching, searching, got it. Locked on and recording. I'll let you know when I have something.”

I put the rifle away, strapped on my gun belt, then grabbed another disposable rain suit, gloves, and a hacksaw. Stepping outside, I cautiously approached the massive carcass. It remained still, and a look around the area showed nothing else around that might be coming in to feed. I dressed in the water- and gore-proof outerwear, then grabbed one of the horns and started cutting where it met the skull. The hacksaw cut through quickly, but the horns were so thick at the base that I had to make a second cut up from the bottom to get all the way through. Anna drove up as I was trying to figure out how to safely stow the horns. I wasn't set up to completely sterilize them in the field, and I didn't have any biohazard bags big enough to hold them. I had settled on stuffing them into a body bag that had been part of the LAV's original equipment and strapping them to the roof when Anna walked up to me.

“And just what are you planning to do with those?”

“I figured I'd get them thoroughly decontaminated, mount them on the LAV, and name it The Dilemma.”

“What?” She thought for a moment. “Oh my God, 'the horns of a dilemma.' That's awful!” With that, she punched me in the shoulder.

“Ow. So, did you find anything?”

“Yeah, I found some old tire tracks. They'd have to be from around the time smugglers started using this route, but nothing more recent.”

“Could they be using planes?”

“Radar would spot them flying into the US, and coverage extends into northern Mexico across most of the border. Hm, let me check something....”

With that, Anna headed back to her truck, with me following just far enough back to enjoy the view. She opened the Ford's passenger side door, swiveled around the laptop on its built-in support, and called up a satellite map of the area. She traced some lines on the map with the her fingers.

“Okay, the Chisos Mountains and Mariscal Mountain would screen them from the main radar installations. But if they went too far north or west from here the aerostat station in Presidio would pick them up. Even just flying this far would make the trip a lot safer for them, the adjacent portion of Mexico has been completely abandoned to the dead, almost as bad as Alaska. But I don't see how they could have cleared even a rough landing strip without being picked up by satellite surveillance. I take it you have a reason for asking about planes?”

“Yep. I spotted a light plane just before you got here. Bobbie's working on ID'ing it.”

“And I have succeeded,” came Bobbie's voice over the speakers. “It's a Cessna 208J Convoy, updated version of the Super Cargomaster. Capacity is sixteen passengers or two and half tons of cargo, or some combination thereof.”

“I still don't see where they could possibly land around here.”

“I have an idea about that. But first, there is some other important information you need to check out.” I reached over to type a web address into her computer, then stepped back to watch the reaction. As the various animated .gifs of Anna loaded, she was by turns curious, amused, shocked, and appalled. It was everything I could have asked for, and the live feed from my helmet camera was going to Bobbie. I heard her break down in giggles and fall out of her chair, and it was all I could do to keep my own laughter enough under control to keep a steady picture.

Bobbie finally recovered her composure. “Okay you guys, time to get back with the program. The premium members have figured out I've got the feed on a delay and am editing something out, but they haven't guessed what yet. The sooner I can start broadcasting again, the better.”

“Yes Ma'am!” Anna and I chorused before returning to our rides and getting back on the road.

Another couple of miles down River Road West, we arrived at the Johnson's Ranch junction. I parked, got out, and motioned for Anna to follow me as I walked north from the road. Barely a hundred feet from the road there was a long, straight strip of level ground mostly clear of brush. And, sure enough, very fresh tracks.

Anna caught up to me. “How did they create this without being noticed?”

“Simple. They didn't create it, it's been here since the late 1920s.”

“What?”

“This is the Johnson's Ranch airfield, established in order to have a place to fly in troops to deal with incursions by bandits. In addition to ranching, the Johnsons ran a trading post and a school, and had already been hit once. Mostly, Army Air Corp pilots from San Antonio used it as a destination when practicing cross-country navigation, particularly around deer season.”

“How is it still in such good shape after all this time?”

“Don't know for sure, but if you know where to look you can still make out the two airstrips on satellite images. They probably had to fill in some erosion and clear some brush, but that would be less obvious than building from scratch.”

I walked down the strip a short way. “Ha! See this? They cut the brush but left the leafy twigs behind so it would still look the same from overhead.”

“Any surviving buildings around here?” Anna asked.

“Not so far as I know.”

“I don't see any likely place they could be using for storage. If the plane you saw brought in a load of contraband, then they must be moving it overland right now.”

She reached into the inside pocket of her jacket and pulled out a detailed topographical map. She unfolded it and traced a route with her finger. “They'll probably pass to the west of Mule Ear Peaks and head north past Burro Mesa. I need to call this in, we've got a real chance to catch this bunch now that we've narrowed down where to look.” She hurried back to her truck.

I walked back to the intersection. The side road leading down to the river showed recent, frequent traffic. It figured, there had been a trading post here over a century ago that did a lot of cross-border business, so it wasn't surprising that somewhere around here the river was easy to ford. I looked around until I spotted the old cemetery and cued Bobbie to start up the feed again. I reached the ten or so grave sites, the sole remaining marker being a concrete cross that was somehow still standing. I started a commentary on the history of Johnson's Ranch as I filmed the single cross and the mounds of rock marking the bones of the dead.

I felt of twinge of conscience for not mentioning the airfield yet, but we can never be entirely sure who might have paid for a premium membership, and it would be just my luck for one of the smugglers to turn out to be a fan. As I left the cemetery and walked cross-country to the ruins of the old ranch house, Bobbie flashed a time code to the HUD on my face shield. It read 20:35, which meant that Bobbie had used up about two thirds of my standard broadcast delay to cover up gaps relating to Anna's little secret mission. A short stroll around the remains of the Johnson home, a quick hike back to the trucks, and Anna was patiently waiting to get back on the road.

Well, 'road' was perhaps an overly generous term. It was still mostly discernible without referring to the GPS. There were no impossible obstacles but between the difficult going and stops to film the scenery, it took a couple of hours to cover the remaining twelve miles or so to the crumbling remains of the paved road that served the western section of Big Bend. It was just a few minutes later that we pulled into the parking lot in front of the burned out pile of debris that had been the Castolon store.

The building had been intended to be the Army barracks for Camp Santa Helena around 1920, but it didn't serve that purpose for almost a century. Before the troops could move in, border tensions had eased and the camp was abandoned. A local store owner got permission to move into it from his old adobe structure, and the building operated as a trading post and post office until the Park Service took over. It continued as an NPS concession until the Rising. When the Army tried to clean out the park, they sent a squad down here. They used the store as a base of operations while they hunted zombies and destroyed any standing structures that could provide shelter. They finally torched the store when they pulled out.

The buildings were gone, but the old picnic tables were still there. Anna and I picked the sturdiest one for lunch. After eating, we strolled around the area. Not much to film here, all the structures had been burned if they were flammable or blown to rubble if they were primarily stone or adobe. The largest man-made object that remained intact was an old steam-powered water pump used to irrigate the crops back when this was farmland. I tried to find a nearby graveyard, but either the directions I had weren't good enough or it was too far gone to be noticeable.

After that we packed up and made the 20 minute drive to Santa Elena Canyon. Formerly known as “the Grand Canyon of the Rio Grande,” Santa Elena Canyon is far more visually striking than Boquillas Canyon. The canyon begins (or rather, ends, as this is the downstream end) at a sheer cliff face, giving a perfect cross section of the gorge. It's shaped like a short, squat wineglass, with the sides rising straight up from the river bank, moving back at a 45 degree angle, then rising straight up again to the top. I got some footage from the overlook, then drove down to the trail head. Looking down the trail as Anna joined me, I could see that Terlingua Creek was up. It flows into the Rio Grande just outside the mouth of the canyon, and we would get soaked to the knees walking across it. Fortunately, I had another plan in mind.

Turning to Anna I said, “If you'd care to join me in the LAV, I'm going to head up the river a ways into the canyon.”

She raised an eyebrow at me, but said nothing.

“I've got written permission from the Park Service to travel the river, honest. I can show you if you'd like.”

“I didn't get briefed on that, but I believe you.”

I grinned. “You can stick your head out the top hatch in back and get a pretty good view. Just watch out for beavers.”

“Beavers?”

“Yep. They're known to live in the canyon, some get large enough to amplify, and if they're fresh they might still be able to swim.”

“Okay, I'll keep an eye out.”

Once we were on board, I stuck my head up through the driver's hatch and picked the clearest route down to the creek. Not because the LAV would have any trouble plowing through the brush, but instead because I wanted to do as little damage to the landscape as possible. Terlingua Creek wasn't deep enough for it to float, so we quickly covered the short distance to the Rio Grande. Once out in the river travel was a lot slower. The current isn't very fast, but neither is the LAV once it's floating, so it took us over two hours to cover the two miles up to Fern Canyon. We actually did see a few beavers on the way, but they fled from the engine noise so I figured they must still be alive. I beached us at the entrance to the narrow side canyon and briefly thought about hiking up it to get some footage of the famous ferns. But according to accounts I've read, the hike requires scrambling up some rocks. In that narrow space I couldn't afford to divert my attention from the surroundings or take my hands off of my weapons. After a longing look, I turned the LAV around to get her nose pointed back towards the water, then climbed up onto the roof.

“Could you pass me up the yellow duffel under the cot?”

Anna ducked down and handed it up to me a few moments later. “Here you go. What is it?”

“An inflatable raft. I'll mount a camera on it and let it float ahead of us downstream. That way all the homebodies can experience a genuine Big Bend rafting adventure.”

With that, I unpacked the raft and pulled the cord to inflate it. After attaching a line from the tail of the raft to the nose of the LAV, I secured one of my field cameras to the raft's floor.

I was just about to launch it when Bobbie whispered in my ear. “See if you can get Anna to ride in it. Having a ranger on the raft, or at least someone in a ranger uniform, would add to the experience. I can make a second copy with her edited out and sell it to the Park Service both ways.”

“Will do,” I replied. “Hey, Anna, would you like to ride the raft? It would help to have someone on board to steer it.”

“Sure!” she said, climbing up out of the LAV and making her way to the front.

I set the raft in the water, then helped Anna get into it, copping a discreet feel and getting elbowed in the process. Once onboard, she paddled out into the river. I got back into the driver's seat and eased the LAV down into the water to follow her. By the time I reached the center of the river, the current had carried the raft out to the end of the line. It had little impact on the bulk of the LAV so I had to accelerate a bit to match the river's slow pace. I soon discovered that traveling at the same rate as the current I couldn't steer, so I shifted into a slow reverse to give me a little water flow to allow maneuvering. Still, downstream was faster than up, and it was about an hour and a half back to Terlingua Creek. I told Anna to stay out in the river as I carefully drove up into the creek and then turned around to back up and tow Anna into the creek with me. I pulled up onto the bank, then got out to haul the raft ashore.

While Anna deflated the raft I took the opportunity to top off my main water tank, Terlingua Creek being notably cleaner than the river my dad always called “the Rio Grungy.” As Anna was struggling to stuff the raft back into its original bag, I grabbed a larger duffel out of the LAV.

“Those things never collapse as neatly as they came from the factory,” I said as I handed her the bag.

She looked into it and saw the panic beacon, field test kit, packages of MREs, and water filter I'd stashed in the bottom. “What's all this for?”

“I don't want to waste the space to haul it back with me, but if I dump it here that's littering. If I leave it packaged with emergency supplies, it's a survival cache. We'll drop it off at Castolon on our way back.

She smirked. “Brilliant.”

As soon as that was done we headed back to Castolon to make the drop off, then found our way to the Cottonwood Campground where I planned to stay the night. But when we arrived, I saw some human shapes among the trees that gave the campground its name. Damn. Kids. Teenagers mainly, seven of them, wearing the tattered remains of Boy Scout uniforms and looking ragged enough to date from the Rising. Don't know how the army missed them, unless they were at a back country site and only wandered down here after the troops left. With them scattered among the trees instead of concentrated in a building, there were likely to be more out there I couldn't see. We were short on daylight and needed to look for somewhere well away to camp, so I didn't waste any time. My Marlin was still handy from earlier, so I stood up out of the driver's seat and picked all of them off before they got within fifty feet.

We turned around and drove back nearly all the way to Santa Elena Canyon, and took the turnoff for Old Maverick Road. The road was in decent shape, it probably got the most traffic of any of the dirt roads in the park, and all those cars left a lasting impression on the landscape. After a few minutes, we took the short side road to a back country camp at the old village of Terlingua Abajo. Not feeling up to facing a keyboard this evening, I dictated a blog entry as I drove and sent it off to Bobbie. We parked in the middle of an open space, and I set up a couple of folding chairs so we could relax and enjoy the remaining daylight. Settling down with a drink, I pulled out my pocket computer and called up an e-book.

Anna asked, “Got anything on there I might like?”

“Well, since you've rafted through Santa Elena Canyon, you might enjoy this one,” I said, sending it over to her e-reader. “Oddly enough, the main character is a Park Ranger named Anna.”

We read in companionable silence until sunset, then went inside for dinner and bed.

 

* * *

_Good Lord! Now Rob has received a 'strongly worded letter' about his little trip through the tunnel from the Humane Society. Apparently ramming zombified critters with an APC is somehow less humane than shooting them in the head. Get over it! They don't care. They're dead. The world (including all the living animals in the area) is a safer place without them. _

  * **From _Yes Sir! F*** You Sir!,_**

**the blog of Bobbie Cardille, April 7, 2040**





	8. Revenge, Rockets, and Road Pizza

_It was my tenth birthday. Mom and Dad said they hadda get on the list two years ago to have my birthday party in Comanche Lookout Park. They said it was important to let kids play outside sometimes. The park had lotsa fences and guards to keep out the zombies and animals that might turn into them. My friends Jimmy and Ronnie and Chris and George and Tommy and Tyler were there. My little sister Jenny too, but she's okay for a girl. We were playing Zombie Pack. All the kids but one are Zombies, the last one is the Survivor. The Survivor has to get to Home Base without being touched by a Zombie or he's dead. I was the Survivor and I hadda get to the tower to be safe. I was running to the tower when Tommy ran at me from behind a tree. I was trying to run around him when suddenly there was an X on his face. Not really an X 'cause it wasn't slanted it was straight up and down and side to side. Then his head 'sploded._

_The stunted, hardy cedars of Comanche Lookout Park melted away, replaced by the tall cottonwood trees that give Cottonwood Campground its name. The ragged, boyish zombie wearing Tommy's face fell to the ground with a bloody third eye above the original two and the back of his skull blown out. I twitched the Marlin to the left as I worked the lever to chamber the next round and a horribly scarred chest filled the scope. I angled the rifle up until the crosshairs settled on Ronnie's forehead and pulled the trigger. As Ronnie dropped out of sight I saw Tyler just behind him. He too collapsed to the dirt with a twitch of my index finger. A moment later Jimmy's head was in my sights. An instant after that his brains were painting the tree behind him. I swiveled farther to the left to find George. He straightened up just before I fired and the bullet took him in the throat and severed his spine. I quickly reloaded from the cartridge carrier attached to the stock and chambered a round as I turned the rifle towards Chris. The scope made him seem close enough to touch. The crosshairs centered on a face almost too pretty to belong to a boy. That face was ruined when the heavy 500 grain slug punched through the bridge of his nose. I swung the Marlin to cover the last zombie and found Jenny staring back at me._

I awoke violently, almost knocking Anna out of the cot we shared. Damn it. Every time I have to shoot kids I end up having nightmares for weeks afterward. My subconscious makes me relive the experience over and over, with the faces of my childhood friends replacing those of the infected. Doesn't matter that they're already dead, doesn't matter that they'd probably thank me if they could. The worst part is that the fucking dreams have ruined one of the happiest memories of my childhood. My tenth birthday was everything a boy could hope for, absolutely perfect.

I take that back, the worst part is Chris. My best friend all the way through high school, my lover after we left for college, and my partner when we were starting out as Irwins. And finally, the first time I had to put down a zombie that used to be someone I knew, it was Chris. There's a reason I prefer to work alone these days. There's also a reason why I am now engaged to a woman who mostly stays at home with her computers.

I gradually became aware that Anna had been talking to me for a while, but I had to give myself a mental shake before the words began to register.

“...dammit would you please say something!”

“Sorry, nightmare. Bad one. I'll be having them for a while yet, so it might be best to sleep separately from now on.”

“What kind of nightmare?”

“I'd really rather not talk about it.”

“Well, you know, it's getting close to dawn anyway, and if you think it would help, well, we could find something to do other than sleep.”

I hugged her tightly, grateful for the touch of someone warm and living. Her mouth found mine and I kissed her ravenously. My erection rose to nudge her thigh and I released her. She pulled away and got on her hands and knees facing away from me. I was entranced by the sight, but it wasn't what I needed right now.

“Please, I want to see your face.”

She immediately flipped over onto her back, spreading her legs. I knelt between her thighs and slammed my cock inside her. She groaned and raised her legs, resting her ankles on my shoulders. I fucked her hard and fast, no finesse, no technique, looking into her eyes the whole time. She winced in pain at the end of every thrust, but her smile got bigger and her hands on my hips kept trying to pull me in deeper. Damn, was she a masochist on top of everything else? With her legs supporting my body, my hands were free to brutally pinch and twist her nipples. She screamed and I felt her orgasm, forcing my cock past her constricting muscles. She had four or five more before I came hard. I collapsed beside her on the cot and we held each other. She was practically purring, and I think that was the moment I fell hopelessly in love with her.

An hour later the sun was up and I was far more cheerful and clear-headed. I was dreading nightfall, but was at least ready to face the day. Anna and I cautiously peered outside, making sure there were no opportunistic zombies laying in wait for the soft gooey center to venture out of the hard shell of the LAV. Once assured that the coast was clear we went outside and settled into our chairs to consume some vaguely recognizable but reasonably tasty foodstuffs from a couple of pouches labeled 'Breakfast.' Once that necessary refueling was done I took a moment to check in with Bobbie.

“What's the word, Bobbie?”

“After the events of last night, there's a whole lot of words you don't want to hear. I've cleared them out of your inbox and adjusted the filters to forward any future such emails to me.”

I grimaced. She must be getting emails from the families of some of those Boy Scouts, or from their lawyers. “How bad is it?”

“So far, all good news. The feedback has been uniformly positive, and it looks like you won't have to go to court. I've also turned down more money than I want to think about for you to bring the bodies back and go looking for the rest of the troop. I referred those to Jenny.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Many people are grateful to no longer have their loved ones shambling around dead, and would love to be able to give their ashes a proper burial. But as much as it bugs me to find out or even speculate about the life stories of any zombies I put down after the fact, having that knowledge ahead of time is even worse, and actually delivering the bodies is a non-starter. My sister Jenny has no such personality quirks. When Texas legalized zombie tracing and recovery as a profession, she was one of the first to apply, and her license number is in the single digits. For a suitable fee, she and her crew will track down a particular zombie, kill it, and bring the body back for identity verification, cremation, and interment.

“Good, she can always use more business, and she's been jealous that I got to come to Big Bend and she didn't. Hopefully we've built up enough goodwill with the Park Service to help her get access. Anything else?”

“Site traffic is still running high. I added a couple of T-shirts to the store, one using a still from you at the visitor center, one from Hot Springs. The first production runs of both have already sold out, though there is some bitching and moaning in the forums that the second shirt doesn't have Anna in the pic.”

I laughed. “Have to see if I can get her to sign a model release.”

“That's all the news from here. Oh, I should add that Dr. Middleton is available from 2-3pm if you need to call him.”

I thought about it for a moment. “Nah, I've got an alternative therapy that should hold me over until I can get home.”

“Yeah, I saw that. Lucky girl. You're always so, _primal_ , after one of your nightmares.”

“You'll get your turn soon. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

If Bobbie seems a little cavalier about my distress, it's because she's learned that's what works for me. I feel even worse when it seems like I'm dragging other people down with me. If they can joke about it, in the right way, it helps me immensely.

Reinvigorated after talking with my bride to be, I policed up the campsite and put everything away. That done, I invited Anna to join me on a stroll over to the nearby ruins. We hiked down to Terlingua Creek, which was much shallower and narrower here than it was down near the Rio Grande. As we were picking the best spot to cross, a flash of movement to the left caused me to draw and aim my handgun. Downstream there was a deeper pool of water, and apparently we had startled a Great Blue Heron that had been wading there. Not the sort of bird you'd expect to find in the desert, but here was a reliable source of water. Before the Rising, Big Bend was famed for the amazing variety of birds that live or at least pass through here, and drew bird watchers from all over.

Once across the creek, we made our way uphill and found the piles of rock marking the locations where homes once stood. This had been the original village of Terlingua, until the mining camp and later chili cook-off mecca farther upstream appropriated the name. Afterward, it was known as Terlingua Abajo, 'Lower Terlingua.' After filming the forlorn remains of the village and also the spectacular view of the mouth of Santa Elena Canyon, I started hunting for the cemetery. I was pretty sure I could find this one. My grandfather had been here and had pictures. He even had some footage, on something called 'VHS tape.' Bobbie had a hell of time finding a machine that could convert it. Grandad had come up here a different way, following the creek up from the river. Come to think of it, he'd mentioned seeing a heron, possibly in that same pool.

I scanned the nearby hills, comparing them to my mental picture, and saw one that looked likely. Looking closer, I thought I could make out a cross leaning drunkenly against the skyline. We climbed to the top and discovered that I had indeed picked the right hill. The mounds of rock covering the graves were plainly visible, and a few of the crosses still stood. I filmed the area while looking closely at the crosses, but was unable to find any legible names. After resting for a few minutes, we headed back to the trucks.

We drove back to Old Maverick Road, then followed it a few miles to the next place I wanted to stop. We pulled off the road in front of a low building. So low, in fact, that when I got out of the LAV and stood in front of it, the peak was lower than my eye level. As I cautiously peered through the chicken wire gate closing the entry, I could see that the floor was dug out several feet below ground level, a feature that would help moderate temperatures in this harsh climate. It was in surprisingly good shape. The Park Service had taken some criticism after they had restored it, for using less than authentic materials for the roof. They clearly hadn't gotten around to correcting that mistake, because there's no way mud and ocotillo branches would have lasted this long. The short rock walls were two to three feet thick, except for the rear wall which was the flat face of an enormous boulder.

Anna spoke up after a minute. “Wow. Someone actually lived in that?”

“Yep. This is Luna's Jacal, built by Gilberto Luna in the late 1800s. He lived here for about fifty years, surviving eleven wives and raising more than fifty children before dying at the age of 109.”

“Wow,” she repeated. “Sounds like one hell of a man.”

I chuckled. We started back towards the vehicles when Bobbie's voice came in my ear. “I'm picking up gunshots in the audio.”

“Hold on.” I took off my helmet and listened. I heard faint reports that could very well be gunshots. Putting my helmet back on, I said, “Okay, put a hold on outgoing video. This just might be some of Anna's business. I'm going to try to find a vantage point to get some footage.”

“Got it.”

None of the cameras I had on me would get good video at more than a few hundred feet, so I ducked into the LAV to get one of my larger handhelds. Turning back to Anna, I said, “If I got you right yesterday, your smugglers probably travel through this area on the other side of the ridge.” She nodded. With that, I turned and started climbing the slope behind Luna's Jacal. It rose a few hundred feet above the road. As I neared the top I could hear the gunshots more clearly, a sure sign that I was headed in the right direction.

When I reached the crest of the ridge, I could see where the action was. A couple of miles away, there was a cluster of vehicles on top of a small rise, with people using them for cover. I couldn't see who they were shooting at. About a quarter mile to the north, a helicopter was grounded at the bottom of a broad ravine, and I wondered why it wasn't up providing air support. I wouldn't be able to hold the camera steady enough at this distance, so I set up a tripod and quickly attached the camera. Zooming in, I could see that one of the vehicles was a truck with a heavy machine gun mounted in the bed. The gun looked a Russian DSHK, which would be sufficient to knock down any pesky aircraft within range. That explained why they weren't risking the helicopter.

There were seven smugglers crouched behind the vehicles, and about that many bodies on the ground. As I watched, one of them took a bullet in the chest, and the man nearest him immediately shot him in the head. Allegedly, in the late 20th century standard military doctrine was that a wounded enemy was better than a dead one. The theory was that a wounded man took at least two more men out of the fight, to render aid and carry him away from the lines for medical attention. These days, it's considered better to kill an enemy with a center of mass shot, in the hopes that he'll get up and bite a few of his fellows. Because of that, seriously wounded soldiers tended to end up permanently dead at the hands of those same fellows.

Panning around, I managed to locate the tactical squad. They were wearing pretty good desert camo other than the letters 'DEA' plainly visible on the backs of their jackets. Since DEA agents don't generally run away from the bad guys, I guessed it didn't matter how visible their backs were. Still, I wasn't very impressed with their tactics, advancing on a fortified position from just one direction. Figuring they were smarter than that, I carefully scanned the area. Aha, three agents had made their way around the smugglers, and were creeping up on them from the rear. At that point, I noticed Anna had caught up with me as was watching the scene through binoculars.

“You're certain this isn't going to anyone other than Bobbie?”

“Absolutely. For all I know, one of those people down there is a fan, and I'd hate for them to be able to see things from this perspective, even with the delay. I know a thing or two about operational security, I've had more than one competitor try to scoop me by joining my site and tracking me through my video feed.”

We stood there for nearly half an hour watching the conflict. Firing was sparse, both sides apparently conserving their ammo for the endgame. Finally, the three agents coming up from behind reached point-blank range, and the one in the lead put a shot into an SUV next to one smuggler's ear and shouted something I couldn't make out, presumably a call to surrender. It worked, and the survivors quickly dropped their weapons and stood up with their hands raised. The rest of the agents came up, and the smugglers were quickly frisked and handcuffed. One agent cut the lock off the door of a panel truck and coaxed about a dozen barely pubescent boys and girls out of it. Shortly afterward, two more helicopters landed and carried both the newly captive and newly liberated away. For another two hours, the agents documented the scene, took samples of the drugs, and finally piled both drugs and bodies into the vehicles before setting the whole mess ablaze. As soon as they returned to their helicopter and flew off to the northwest, Anna and I trudged back down the ridge.

We had just reached the bottom when I heard the distinctive sound of a safety clicking off behind me. I whirled around and found myself staring down the enormous bore of a large-caliber handgun with my own sidearm only halfway out of its holster. Behind that gaping maw stood the second most beautiful woman within a seventy mile radius. Of course, so far as I knew there were only two women inside that distance, but she was still stunningly attractive. Long dark hair, high cheekbones, and a bust that was more modest than Anna's but well-formed. She was flanked by two large and brutish henchmen carrying SMGs, and behind her stood a boy of about 13. Apparently they had hidden behind the boulder that Mr. Luna had used for a rear wall. She didn't have to say anything, the point was obvious. I slid my .45 back into the holster and raised my hands. Anna let her SMG hang from its sling and did likewise. The lady's two side-boys moved in and relieved us of our weapons. They took Anna's handcuffs and locked my wrists behind my back.

The woman spoke for the first time, with a cultured upper class Mexican accent. “Well, Rob Phillips, it is so good to meet you.”

“It's always nice to meet a fan. I'd offer you an autograph, but...” I said, shrugging with my cuffed arms.

“Oh, Jorge here is the fan,” she said, nodding to the grunt on her left. “He has been following your little adventure and knew you were in the area. If he had not known you were coming, you would have stumbled across us yesterday. The reason I am happy to see you is that I hate walking. I am afraid we are going to have to borrow your car to get back home.”

She turned to Anna and indicated the handcuffs that Jorge had confiscated from her, now imprisoning my wrists. “You are a police officer?”

“Good lord no! I've got a master's in geography, and I study the effects of terrain on movement patterns of the infected. I'm not some stupid cop. But the Park Service insists that anyone who works out in the field get law enforcement certification and carry the gear. With the budget cuts the last twenty years they make us all do double duty.”

She looked Anna up and down, taking the in the Park Service patch on her jacket. “Very well.”

With that, she led the way back to the road, with Anna and I being dragged along behind. I contrived to bump into Anna and 'accidentally' trip her to the ground. While the goons were distracted, I slipped a hand into my back pocket and pulled out the key fob for the LAV. I hit the lock button, dropped it to the toe of my boot, and snap-kicked it far out into the brush. Yeah, I used to play hacky sack in college, and Hapkido does wonders for your leg muscles.

“Oops, I seem to have lost the key.”

“I am sure your girlfriend back home can unlock it for us, if I threaten to do you grievous bodily harm.”

“Actually, no, I can't,” came Bobbie's voice over the LAV's loudspeaker. “The locks are separate from the rest of the systems, otherwise they'd be too easy for someone to hack.”

“Then I guess I do not need him,” the woman replied, raising her gun to point at my head.

“On the other hand,” Bobbie said, “I do have remote access to the comm equipment, so I'll make you a deal. Leave them alive and uninjured and I'll let you leave in the Ranger's truck. Harm a hair on either of their heads, and I'll use the microwave transmitter to fry its electronics.”

The woman stood silent for a minute. “Very well, I accept your offer.”

She instructed one of her bodyguards to use the sling from Anna's gun to tie her hands, then led us towards the jacal.

“What are you doing!” Bobbie's voice thundered across the desert.

The woman turned around. “I am putting them in a shelter. You would not want them to get bitten by an infected javelina while they are tied up.”

We were taken inside, and one of my wrists was released long enough to cuff my arms around one of the thick wooden posts supporting the roof. The not-Jorge minion pushed Anna to the floor and used her boot laces to tie her ankles together, then rummaged in her pockets for her car keys. His boss smacked him on the back of the head when rummaging turned into groping.

“There is no time for that!” She led the young boy to the entrance and placed the handcuff key in his shirt pocket, telling him in Spanish, “My pet, it seems I have to leave you here. You are to stand at the door and watch me drive away. You may release them once I am out of sight, but no sooner.” She kissed him and then walked out into the sunlight.

Her stooges followed her out. Shortly thereafter, I heard the doors on Anna's Ford close, the engine start, and the truck drive away. But barely ten seconds later it stopped again. I heard a gunshot and the boy's back erupted in a spray of blood. The bullet struck the wall behind me, thankfully too spent to ricochet. The boy fell to his hands and knees, coughing up blood, then collapsed to the floor.

“Damn! As skinny as he is, he'll amplify fast!”

“I know!” Anna said, scooting behind me, somehow managing to get up on her knees and press her belly against my hands. “You've got to get my knife out and cut me loose.”

I fumbled with her belt, trying to draw the dagger that served it as a buckle. “In a different setting, this would be a fun game.”

“How can you joke at a time like this?”

“It's how I keep my sanity.”

I got the knife loose, and Anna turned around so I could cut the strap binding her wrists. It was difficult working behind my back, especially with the thick post hampering my movements, and I heard her hiss in pain as I nicked her wrist. After what seemed like an hour but couldn't have been more than a few minutes, I managed to free her hands. She took the blade from me and began working to release her ankles. As she struggled, I saw the semblance of life return to the boy. With a cry of triumph, Anna stood up. At the same time, the boy began to draw his hands underneath his body. Anna dropped her knife and picked up a large rock that had fallen from the wall. She raised it over her head and flung it down at the boy's head. The back of his skull visibly caved in, and the body twitched once before falling still. Anna stood white-faced and gulping air.

I spoke into the silence, trying to distract her from thinking about what she'd just done. “Do you think maybe you could let me loose soon?”

She started, and then turned to me, getting herself back under control. “I dunno, might be fun to keep you chained up for a while.”

I gave a sharp laugh, if she could joke about it, she'd be okay. “Could be lots of fun but, as the lady said, we don't have time for that right now.”

Anna looked back at the body and the spreading pool of blood. “The keys are covered in infected blood, and I have a cut on my wrist.”

“Aren't you law enforcement types trained to carry a spare key tucked away somewhere?”

“Yeah. It's on the ring with the keys to the Ford. I need to rethink that in the future.” She paused. “Wait a minute, I was watching and they didn't double-lock the cuffs. I can pick them.”

She stepped carefully around the blood pool, finding a protruding bit of chicken wire on the entrance and bending it back and forth until it broke loose. She walked back and knelt behind me, taking hold of my wrist and doing something that I couldn't see.

“This may not be stiff enough. Too bad I don't wear bobby pins.”

“It better work, because I really want this fucking bitch.”

“Hey, I'm the dumb cop here, it's my job to get her.”

“Unless my weapons are piled up outside then she has stolen my property. Under Texas law I have justification to pursue her and use any means necessary up to and including deadly force to recover it.”

“She's been indicted for federal crimes. That gives me the authority to commandeer a vehicle to chase her. If you beg nicely, I might requisition your services as driver.”

“Indicted? You recognized her?”

“That's right. Lizbeth Moreno-Pena, number four on the DEA most-wanted list. She'll probably get bumped up after this.”

“She won't live long enough to get to number one.”

I felt the cuff on my left wrist release. “Got it,” Anna said. “Now that I've had a refresher it should be quicker with the other one.”

“Don't bother, I've got a key in the LAV.”

I got up and ran outside. It had been years since I'd been outdoors without a gun. Anna hurried after me. “How long do you think it will take to find the keys? You sent them pretty far.”

“No need. I lied.”

I went to the rear door of the LAV, pressed my palm to the blood test unit, and recited, “When the dead walk, senores, you must stop the killing or you'll lose the war.”

After receiving the pass phrase and getting a clean blood test, the locks clicked open. Bobbie's voice came over the speakers. “Rob! Thank God!”

“Bobbie, I think they took my helmet. Can you track it?”

“Already on it, sending their position to your GPS, constant update.”

As we were talking, I went inside and opened the gun locker, offering Anna the first pick. She squealed with glee and grabbed my M14. I pulled out a handcuff key and unlocked my other wrist, then took my Marlin lever action and my Colt Government Model and headed for the driver's seat.

Anna asked, “Bobbie, can you connect me to the DEA in El Paso?”

“Working on it. Use the headset on Rob's desktop. Maybe they'll listen to you better than they did to me.”

I turned on the engine, shouted “Hold on!” and gunned it, fishtailing in the dirt and gravel as I turned around. I followed the GPS track to the point where she had left the road. That made it easier for me. The trail of fresh ruts and broken brush was easy to follow. Even better, while Anna's Ford had the advantage in road speed, the LAV was much better for off-road driving.

“Hey, Bobbie, is Ice with you?”

George 'Iceman' Garwynn is the other reason Bobbie doesn't get much sleep while I'm in the field. He's about my age, too old to be named for George Romero, and claims his parents were fans of a 20th century basketball player. He gets his nickname from being at the top of his field in cybersecurity, what is sometimes known as Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics. He is also possibly the best hacker in the world who has never done anything illegal, though that is a rather small pond. He has worked on mastering the techniques he defends against.

“Yep, he's here.”

“Great. Ask him to cut any feed from our site going to receivers within 50 miles. I'm sure Agent Guillen can authorize that for him. Once that's done go live, real time. Split screen it with the video starting with the gunfight between the smugglers and the DEA. Get one my betas to do background and running commentary.”

“On it.”

Anna's voice came from the back. “We're on our own. The tactical team doesn't have enough fuel to get back here, and the sheriff's department and state police are busy with a major accident near Marathon. The Border Patrol is responding, but they have no air assets available and their nearest unit is in Presidio. They'll never catch up to us. I had to hang up before my boss ordered me to break off pursuit.”

Bobbie chimed in. “And I've got any further calls from them forwarding to a phone sex line in Monterrey.”

“Just as well, I'd rather settle this personally.”

We bounced cross-country in silence for a while. Miss Moreno had followed the dry bed of Alamo Creek for a couple of miles, then turned southeast. Looks like she was headed directly for River Road. Good compromise on her part, she'd be easier to find but could make better speed. Still, the road was only marginally better than the unspoiled desert, and if she was confident that she was free of pursuit, she'd keep her speed down enough to avoid the risk of wiping out. I should still be able to catch her.

Anna asked from the back. “Uh, Rob, exactly why do you have leg shackles and handcuffs in your gun safe?”

“If you hook a couple of zombies together, they can't coordinate their movements enough to catch you. It's funny as hell, kinda like undead Keystone Cops. Three is even better. Bobbie and I also have a set at home for, um, personal use.”

“Kinky! So you weren't kidding earlier?”

“Nope.”

Bobbie broke in, “Much as I hate to interrupt your planning session for tonight's sex and bondage romp, the DEA finally wised up and called me directly. They're ordering you to stop.”

“Sorry, I don't work for the DEA. My actions are justified under state law, and they aren't state law enforcement officers. They have no authority to stop me.”

“They also insist I pass the message on to Anna.”

“You aren't Agent Guillen's secretary, and neither am I. They can go whistle for it.”

“Got it. They're also pissed about the video feed, but I read them the riot act on that and referred them to our lawyer.”

“Good girl,” I said. Bobbie giggled at that.

I checked the GPS. We were gaining even faster than I expected.

“Bobbie, what's the terrain like ahead?”

“Just a sec.”

“What, something about Big Bend that you don't know?” Anna added.

“Hey, the Park Service didn't want me going off road more than absolutely necessary.”

“Okay Rob, it looks like a wide alluvial fan cut by ravines.”

“Thanks Bobbie.” That explained it. Our quarry was crossing rocky terrain and having to pick her way through or around gullies. If I was willing to take some chances, I might be able to catch her short of Castolon. I raised the camera mast ten feet and echoed the forward view to my screen. I risked damaging the mount, but I needed to be able to see farther ahead. The idea proved its worth almost immediately as I saw marks on the ground where Anna's truck had stopped abruptly at the edge of a steep drop, backed up, and then gone around. I had enough advance warning to change direction without slowing down. The pursuit was nerve-wracking. The terrain was rough and tended to abruptly rise and fall with little warning. On the rare patches of smooth ground, I could tell where Miss Moreno was heading. She aiming just to the left of Castellan Peak, which would put her on the main road a short distance from the River Road turnoff. She must be headed back to her usual crossing point, if all she wanted was to just get across the border she could have gone due south and been there by now.

“Stupid Fucking Moron! Damn it Bobbie, I'm an idiot! If they have my helmet you should be able to listen in on them.”

“Shit, should have thought of that myself. Hold on. No good, I don't speak Spanish. I'll patch it through to you.”

I listened, but I didn't have much more luck than Bobbie did. The lady wasn't talking and her two flunkies spoke a rapid-fire dialect that was significantly different from either the formal Spanish I learned in school or the Tex-Mex I had picked up in San Antonio.

“As best as I can make out, they're headed back to Johnson Ranch and have some compadres meeting them at the river.”

“How many?” Anna asked.

“They haven't said. Does the DEA have any evidence to show that they run more than one smuggling caravan at a time?”

“Not that I've seen.”

“Then probably just a few. It'd be tough to support a large group out in the middle of nowhere, and I expect the isolation would mean they don't have to worry about rivals.”

“Makes sense.”

I checked the GPS again. Damn, she was opening her lead. She must have gotten clear of the worst of it.

But ten minutes later, so had I. I picked up speed, barreling down a dry creek bed and then climbing up to the road before taking a sharp left to head north along it. Back on familiar ground, I retracted the camera mast. I winced at the metal scraping sound coming from the mechanism, I had sure enough bent something. Shortly thereafter, I turned right on River Road. As the minutes went by, I started gaining again, slowly but steadily. I have a knack. No matter how wild the country I venture into, I can always find my way back and remember any obstacles on the way. It's a handy skill for someone who regularly travels into _terra incognita_. And it worked to my advantage now, I knew this road and she didn't. Mile after mile, I closed the gap, if not as quickly as I would have liked. And where the road straightened out about a mile short of Johnson Ranch, she came into view.

“Anna, you're up.”

“Hell yeah!”

I heard Anna open up the top hatch in the rear compartment. Soon after I could see bullets impacting the back of the Ford. The DEA vehicle was armored enough to deal with typical gangbangers, who generally carried 9mm guns or the occasional AK-47. The more powerful rounds from the M14 might be able to punch through it. She walked a burst across the rear window, causing a spiderweb of cracks but no holes. While Anna was reloading, not-Jorge leaned out the passenger side window and let off a wild burst from his submachinegun. Most of the rounds missed, a few ricocheted off of the front armor. Anna returned fire while he reloaded, to no effect. His next burst was a bit more on-target.

“OUCH! Dammit!”

“You okay back there?”

“Took a couple of rounds to the chest but the Kevlar stopped them. Might have a cracked rib, and one of them tagged me right on the nipple.”

“Want me to kiss it and make it better?”

“Sure! But no teeth this time!”

I chuckled. That ought to get the forums hopping. At that point Anna must have popped up and opened fire again. I saw not-Jorge take rounds in the upper chest and shoulder. Moments later, the door opened and he was unceremoniously shoved out to tumble bonelessly down the road. Until a glancing blow from the front end of the LAV sent him flying towards the river, that is. Anna returned her attention to the rear window, sending several rounds through the damaged glass. The Ford started to slow. I pulled up until I was even with the left rear tire and then swerved hard to the right, knocking it into a skid that quickly turned into a roll. The Ford rolled over three times before coming to rest on its left side. I came to a stop about a hundred feet away.

I was unbuckling my restraints when Anna shouted, “Rob! We've got company!”

It seemed I was wrong in estimating their likely numbers. Eight vehicles were driving up from the river bank. Three dunebuggies, looked like they were built on 1960s VW Beetle frames, two Ford Courier IVs, a pair of Land Rover Defender 200s, and an ancient Humvee. Hopefully they didn't have anything that could penetrate.... Nope, scratch that. I rammed my foot down on the accelerator, wheels throwing up a rooster tail of dirt and rock as the engine strained to put this mass of metal into motion. A fusillade of bullets bounced off of the LAV's armor. Another fountain of soil appeared to my left as the RPG I had seen a moment earlier just barely missed.

“Bobbie, I need.... Bobbie? Bobbie!” Only static answered me. A glance at the GPS showed that even it was fuzzy. “Damn, they've got a Bollix.”

“A what?”

“Broad-spectrum jammer. We're cut off.”

“Didn't Bobbie say that you have a microwave transmitter on this thing?”

“Yep,” I said, turning off the road and cutting across the old air field. “Also a laser link. Neither one can hit a receiver while I'm moving, and if we stop we're sitting ducks for more RPGs.”

“So what's the plan?”

“We head north towards Panther Junction. I'll set up a short message and put it on a continuous loop when we get near Mariscal Mine. With enough repeats the monitoring station we set up there for BCI might be able to get the whole thing and then send it on once we've drawn the jammer out of range.”

“Sounds like a.... Dammit, what does it take to kill that bitch?”

“Our lady friend is still alive?”

“Yeah, she just got picked up by that Hummer. So, think we can make it to Marathon?”

“No way. Once we hit the main road those dunebuggies will run circles around us. The Land Rovers will be almost as bad.” I glanced at the red lights on my instrument panel. “Besides, they've shot out all three tires on the right side. They're run-flats, but they won't hold up for that far.”

“So what can we do?”

“To quote the great Herbert West, 'I have a plan'.”

Having gained a small lead by taking a shortcut cross country, I got back on the road. According to Anna, they'd made at least some use of the Loop Camp road, but I'd be past that shortly and would once again have home-field advantage. That might not be worth much, but I'd take anything I could get. Anna was firing three-round bursts through the rear gunport, trying to encourage them to hang back or at least keep them dodging. I dictated a short message to my system.

_Pursued by eight vehicles, heavily armed. Proceeding P. Junction via Glenn Spring._

We were going much faster than we had been coming the other way, and it was barely ten minutes before we neared Mariscal Mine. I set the message looping, hoping it would get through. I didn't dare slow down. Bullets continued to pepper the rear of the LAV as we thundered up Black Gap Road. Then I saw bullets striking the road surface just ahead of us. I flipped through camera views on my screen until I saw it. They'd called in air support, that cargo plane from yesterday was circling low and slow above us with a gunman firing from the side door. Much lower than I would have expected, in fact. They must have been trying to stay below the radar. Still, not much chance Anna would be able to hit them while we were bouncing down this poor excuse for a road at high speed.

A few minutes later we were approaching the Black Gap itself. I shouted back to Anna, “Hold on, it's about to get rough!”

“Whaddaya mean 'about to'?”

In addition to being a very uneven and narrow passage between solid rock walls, the gap also curves sharply. The LAV went briefly airborne and scraped basalt with the right front corner before slamming back down on its wheels. I wrenched the front tires to the left, trying to make the curve, but still shattered a couple of rocky projections before regaining control. We lost contact with the ground again before emerging back into open terrain. I flipped the screen to rear view, paying it what little attention I could spare. The first dunebuggy made it through, but the second one bounced off a wall and rolled over. That slowed it down enough that one of the Land Rovers hit it, ran over it, slammed into the rock, and flipped onto its roof. As we sped away, only the one dunebuggy followed. The rest of the gang must be bottled up behind the wreck. That gave us an opportunity.

“Load a full mag. When I stop, hit the top hatch, send a few rounds at the dunebuggy, then empty the rest at the plane.”

“Will do.”

I gave her ten seconds to reload, then threw the LAV into a t-stop. As it slid to a halt, I shouldered the driver's hatch aside while I grabbed my Marlin lever action. I stood up, took aim at the plane and did my best Chuck Connors impression. I wasn't as fast as 'The Rifleman' but still managed a credible rate of fire. I heard Anna fire a couple of shots, then she switched to full-auto and let off a burst. I think I got a couple of hits, and Anna certainly did. Not sure which of us hit the cockpit window, but it didn't look like we hit anyone. Still, the plane veered off and started flying due south. I dropped back into the driver's seat, hit the accelerator, and turned back down the road. I checked the screen again. Anna might have hit something on the dunebuggy. Both the occupants looked intact, but it wasn't moving. Maybe they were just cautious.

We came to the junction with Glenn Spring Road and turned to the left. I hadn't taken this route on my last trip through, (had it really only been a few days ago?) so I was forced to slow down. I gotten so used to the static coming from my comm system that I was surprised when I started hearing words.

_Mess## ##ceived. State ##ice responding. ## copy Pan## ##tion._

The message repeated. I tried responding, but there was no indication I was heard. After a minute or so, the words faded back into complete static. Damn, they must be catching up again. The Humvee probably had enough heft to ram the Land Rover out of the way. I listened in vain until we came to the end of Glenn Spring road and turned right. It was almost time to put the next stage of my half-assed plan into action.

“Pass the grenade launcher and the bandolier of gold-tipped rounds.”

I waited until she had done so, and then said, “It's about time for us to split up. I need you to get up on the roof and jump off when I slow down. Run to the right exactly perpendicular to the road. That'll put you headed straight towards Dugout Wells. I have an air horn back there that I use to call zombies. You can use that to signal the gate to let you pass. Once inside there's a lock-down button that will seal the place up and give you control of the guns. You should be able to call out once I lead them farther away.”

Surprisingly, she waited until I was finished. “What are you going to do?”

“Lead them behind Panther Junction and play cat and mouse among the houses. The former park employees will give them something to worry about besides me.”

“You are certifiably insane. Reserve me the padded cell next to you.”

I heard her climb up on top and slam the hatch behind her. When I judged I was at the right spot, I started to slow down. Sooner than I expected, she leapt off and hit the ground rolling. She was quickly up and sprinting towards the right. A minute later I was fishtailing through a right turn onto the paved road. For the first few hundred feet I drove with my left tires off the shoulder, making sure I'd leave plenty of flying dust for them to follow. I was just about to my next turn when the surviving dunebuggy pulled into view behind me. Good, I wanted them to know where I was going. I turned left just before the Visitor Center, heading up the road toward the Park Service housing. I made a hard right at the first residential loop, then continued curving to the right, going off road and around the first house. I charged back towards the entrance road just in time to meet the guys in the dunebuggy. They had no time to dodge, and the slanted prow of the LAV went up over their vehicle. The roll cage proved no match for the massive weight of steel, and it was flattened by my passage. I turned back around and headed deeper into the cluster of homes. The local zombies, already stirred by my arrival, soon descended on the fresh road pizza.

A few side streets later, I spotted a house with broken out windows facing back the way I had come. I drove around to the side, then plowed in through the wall to park in the living room. Thus concealed, I waited for my pursuers with the muzzle of the grenade launcher protruding from my firing port. The sound of gunshots in the near distance heralded their arrival at the pizza party. My hidey-hole was occupied, I had half a dozen infected pawing futilely at the LAV's armor. Damn, I was going to have decontaminate it again. One of the Ford trucks drove into view and I fired. I didn't get a direct hit, but shrapnel from the blast ripped through the tires, engine, and passenger compartment. Another cluster of zombies swarmed it, dragging out the wounded men. I drove out through the back of the house just in time, getting no more than thirty feet away before one of the smugglers hit it with a rocket-propelled grenade.

I played hide and seek with the survivors for another twenty minutes. I'd made them cautious, and their lighter vehicles were hindered by crowds of infected that the LAV could plow through without slowing. I had managed to work my around them when I spotted something through a gap in the hills. There was a helicopter landing somewhere near the Visitor Center. If the smugglers were that well equipped I was toast, so I had hopes it was the cavalry. I abandoned my plan to ambush the remaining smugglers from the rear, and instead headed towards (hopefully) my rescuers. I crested the last hill, and saw a bunch of helicopters bearing the famous gold and black insignia of the 1st Cavalry Division. I'll be damned, it really was the cavalry. I opened the driver's hatch and waved at them. They had already fallen into a line and an officer waved me through a gap. I had just passed behind them when my recent playmates drove into view and were met by a wall of flying lead. I slowed to a stop, but the same officer waved for me to keep going and pointed down the road towards Dugout Wells.

About that time, one of the soldiers must have put a round through the Bollix, because I suddenly got communications back. Bobbie was on the line instantly, and we had a very sappy and extremely personal long-distance reunion. Turns out she was the one that got the Army involved, she'd been burning up the phone lines while I was out of contact. I noticed she managed to find the time to start downloading the recorded video from the last few hours. Bobbie finished with “Don't you ever do that to me again!” as I reached Dugout Wells. I called Anna to let me in, and she met me at the door.

We shed clothing as we ran towards the showers. Once the bleach portion was replaced by pure, luxurious hot water, Anna braced her hands against the wall and thrust her ass out at me.

“Please, Rob, hurry!”

She looked so sexy positioned like that, with the water cascading down her back, that I quickly got hard. I moved behind Anna and slowly entered her. There was a lot of friction at first, until her juices were flowing faster than the shower could wash them away.

“Pull my hair.”

She knew how to push all my buttons. I wrapped my left hand in her hair, using the added leverage to thrust harder. Once I had a good grip, I used my right hand to punctuate each stroke with a solid, stinging smack on her ass.

Anna screamed out, “Yesss!”

With all the stress and the emotional ups and downs of the day, neither of us lasted long. I collapsed back against the opposite wall and slid down to the shower floor, pulling Anna into my lap. She put her arms around my neck and looked into my eyes.

“Rob, I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“I just need to know one thing. Is Bobbie bi?”

“Yes.”

“Good, because so am I.”

We retired to one of the bunks for round two. Luckily, when the gate opens an alarm sounds inside, so we were up and dressed just in time for company.

The same officer from earlier walked up to me and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Philips. Major Sanders, commanding Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Regiment.”

As I returned the handshake, I couldn't resist, I had to say it. “Part of you must be dreading your next promotion.”

He laughed at that. “That's the most tactful way I've heard that put. But I'm used to it, everyone's been calling me 'Colonel' since I was at West Point.”

“What brings you this far from Ft. Hood, Major?”

“Our battalion was doing desert training up at Ft. Bliss. You're a lucky man, your girl back in San Antonio got through to the post commander and did some fast talking. She made a good case for your 'friends' being an invasion force and had the pictures to back it up. Since my company was already in the air at the time, we got diverted down here. And now I am going to have to hand you off to the battalion S2, uh, intelligence officer, for debriefing.”

I spent the next couple of hours being gently interrogated. Being a trained journalist and having more experience giving interviews than your typical Irwin, I managed to get some information in the process. One of the juicier tidbits was that either Anna or I had hit one of the men in the plane. When he got up and started munching on his buddies, the pilot ditched in the desert and gratefully surrendered when the Army happened across him. He and the smugglers the DEA had arrested that morning were the only survivors of the entire operation. I also learned that the Army was clearing out the rest of the zombies at Panther Junction to secure the area for the investigators yet to come. Damn, I'd had plans for that pack.

While I was busy with my military debriefing, a DEA supervisor arrived and put Anna through the same wringer. Once we were done, she and I switched places and went through the whole process all over again. The Army guy was more thorough, so I had time to record commentary and post updates until Anna was done with him. Once she was free, I took her aside.

“So, what's the damage?”

“They're going to let me resign without putting a reprimand in my file. I'll find something else, I'm sure.”

We raided the safe house supplies for dinner and talked until well after dark. Inhibited by all the strangers about, we had to settle for a discreet good night kiss before she took a bunk and I went out to sleep in the LAV. Morning came a bit too early, and I got up to hose down my vehicle. I carried two spares, so I replaced the front and rear tires on the right side. If I drove carefully I could manage without the middle one. Anna and I had one last breakfast together before we made our goodbyes and I drove off to the west.

I had landed an endorsement deal and I needed a decent-sized pack of zombies to fulfill the contract. With the known groups in the park pretty well wiped out, I headed west out of Big Bend past Terlingua to Lajitas. It was home to about 120 before the Rising, and because of the isolation only a few made it out alive. By last report, more than half of them were still shambling around the town. Like Big Bend, the heat of the summer had kept the tourist population down. I parked in the street at the front of the small hotel, and pulled a large box out of the back of the gun locker. Inside was a brand new pre-production sample Auto-Ordnance Model 2041 Thompson Submachinegun. Making extensive use of lightweight polymers to make it easier to carry, it was painstakingly finished to look identical to the classic gangster 'tommy gun.' Modern .45 caseless rounds made it lighter still, so the capacity of the drum magazines was increased to 140 rounds. Three loaded magazines were packed with it. An upgraded recoil compensator made it easily controllable even at full-auto. I slid a magazine into place, racked a round in the chamber, and hung the other two from my tactical vest. By the time I stepped outside, over three dozen zombies were in view, and I could hear the moans of more coming from behind the buildings. This should make great advertising copy for the new gun. I activated a couple of field cameras and smiled at the oncoming horde. 

“Let's dance.”

* * *

_With much hemming and hawing, the DEA finally agreed to pay Rob the reward for the final disposition of one Lizbeth Moreno-Pena. They expressed dismay at his 'interference' in their oh-so-carefully planned operation. Agent Guillen showed undeserved restraint by refusing to disagree with her former employers, but we had audio and video proving that his involvement had been all but coerced. Between that and the rising tide of public opinion, they had to pay out the money to the only person even vaguely qualified to collect. Once the reward is in the bank, Rob plans to head up to Ft. Hood and use some of it to treat Bravo Company to a beer bash._

  * **From _Yes Sir! F*** You Sir!,_**

**the blog of Bobbie Cardille, April 17, 2040**




 

_The National Park Service is pleased to announce the hiring of Antonia Guillen, lately retired from the Drug Enforcement Agency. Ranger Guillen has a Master's degree in Geography from New Mexico State University, and will put her education to use studying the effects of terrain on infected movement patterns. Her law enforcement training and experience will be a significant asset in the field. Her first posting will be to Yellowstone National Park. Please welcome Ranger Guillen to the Service._

**From The National Park News, April 23, 2040**

 

_I think I have a new favorite gun. Check it out._

<video link>

  * **From _Anthropological Curiosity,_**

**the blog of Rob Phillips, April 8, 2040**




**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Afterword: Thank you to everyone who made it this far, I hope you enjoyed it. 
> 
> I do not own the Newsflesh Trilogy or any of the characters created by Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire). Nor do I own Big Bend National Park, Cadillac-Gage/Textron (makers of the LAV-300), the Ford Motor Company, Land Rover, Volkswagen, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the US Army (at least, no more than any other US citizen does), or any international drug- and sex-trafficking cartels. Any resemblance to persons living, dead, or living dead is purely coincidental.


End file.
